Question

c++

Imaginethatyouhavebeenassignedtoimplementasimplesequentialsearch on an array. The problem is that you want the search to be as general as pos- sible. This means that you need to support arbitrary record and key types. Describe ways to generalize the search function to support this goal. Con- sider the possibility that the function will be used multiple times in the same program, on differing record types. Consider the possibility that the func- tion will need to be used on different keys (possibly with the same or differ- ent types) of the same record. For example, a student data record might be searched by zip code, by name, by salary, or by GPA.

Answer 1

The question is asking to describe ways to generalize the search function so I guess any type of code is not needed.

We can maintain a template. So function template are used to vary data type in function. So the problem of different data type in an array is resolved by using template.

Now the question comes on searching by different keys. This problem can be resolved by passing a function as a parameter. The function will take two arguments and returns true if they are true on some aspects. For example the function takes parameters (Record A, Record B) where Record is a structure of {int a, string b, char c}.

Now we can define a function which returns true when A.a == B.a OR we can define a different function which returns true when A.b == B.b OR we can define a different function which returns true when A.c == B.c Using this method we can resolve the issue of searching with different keys.