Define bitset size at initialization?

Question

I want to make a bitset in C++. I did a bit of research. All examples I found where like this:

bitset<6> myBitset;
// do something with it

But I don't know the size of the bitset when I define the variable in my class:

#include <bitset>
class Test
{
public:
     std::bitset *myBitset;
}

This won't compile...

And initializing like this also doesn't work:

int size = getDependentSizeForBitset();
myBitset = new bitset<size>();

Solution 1

Boost has a dynamic_bitset you can use.

Alternatively, you can use a vector<bool>, which (unfortunately) is specialized to act as a bitset. This causes a lot of confusion, and in general is considered a bad idea. But that's how it works, so if that's what you need, you might as well use it, I suppose.

Solution 2

Use Boost::dynamic_bitset

Solution 3

You should check out boosts dynamic_bitset.

Solution 4

What you are saying at the beginning is not true. The "examples you found" did not look as you posted. It is impossible to use a non-constant value to parametrize a template. So, your first example is invalid. Only constant expressions can serve as non-type arguments for a template. I.e. the non-type argument has to be a compile-time constant.

Of looks like you want to create a bitset whose size is not a compile-time constant. In this case the bitset template is out of question. You need an implementation of run-time sized bitset. For example, you can use std::vector<bool> - in many (if not all) implementations this template is specialized to implement a packed array of boolean values, where each element occupies one bit (as opposed to an bool object).

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