[knuckles]

In OF 2.4., UList::swap is implemented as a member-by-member trade, which has computational complexity O(nElements) [see definition in https://github.com/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM.../UList/UList.C]. It seems to me that it could instead be implemented by trading the data pointers of the two ULists, as is done in std::vector::swap. This has computational complexity O(1).

Is there a reason that swap is implemented this way?

[wyldckat]

Greetings knuckles,

As far as I can figure out, the likely reasons are as follows:

• This is a template class. It has to be valid for any number of possible types of data storage, may it either be integers/labels or complex classes.
• With this in mind, there are classes that overload the "operator=" method and which must be called when the item is copied between two variables, in order for things to be properly tagged or updated.
• If the objective is to swap the contents, it might make more sense to swap directly the original variables of type "UList".

Nonetheless, I'm not familiar with OpenFOAM's complete source code, so it might make some sense to either change how "swap" works or to have another method that does internal pointer swap instead, for the situations where that is applicable. In which case, I suggest you try proposing this on the bug tracker.

Best regards,
Bruno

edit: I've taken a look at the origin of this method "swap" and it exists at least since OpenFOAM 1.1. Perhaps this could use some revising...

[knuckles]

Thanks for your input wyldckat!

Perhaps references are the motivation? Client code could store a reference to element 0 of the list, but this operation would actually bind the reference to the data for element 0. The current implementation of swap() would update the data that the reference points to, maintaining that referenceToZero = list[0], but swapping the data pointers would have no impact on the previously-stored reference to element 0. In code:

List<scalar> list = ...;

scalar& refToFirstElement = list[0];

list.swap(otherList);

assert(refToFirstElement == list[0]); // Not guaranteed  if swap() just exchanges pointers

Perhaps client code would find that surprising?

[wyldckat]

Hi knuckles,

Good point! I didn't think/remember about that possibility.
OpenFOAM's code is very reliant on accessing data by reference, given that it's more efficient in many situations, so that would certainly be a good reason for having a hard data swap.

Best regards,
Bruno