Annoying Differences to STL

Development Programming & Scripting C++
1

I’m finding it a little annoying when basic data structures use terminology and method names which are different to STL.

For example:
[FONT=Courier New]FString::IsEmpty() === [FONT=Courier New]std::string::empty()
[FONT=Courier New]FString::Empty() === [FONT=Courier New]std::string::clear()

When I do [FONT=Courier New]if(myString.Empty()), I do not expect this to modify myString.

It would be nice if stuff like this lined up better.
However, I appreciate it is probably already much too late to do anything about this - and best names is something of a subjective issue anyway…

Sure I could just use std::string instead, but I’d rather not bring in those dependencies.

Oh well.

2

That’s not really a dependency, is it? Every modern compiler has a good STL implementation, and you’re very likely to be using at least part of it, especially now with all the fun new toys in C++11.

I assume the UE4 versions are better optimized for performance-critical situations, but for the most part I’d stick with the STL for game logic and everything else which isn’t directly using the engine.

3

Why not just change it in Core to what you prefer?

I would personally avoid mixing STL with UE4 … but nothing would stop you from using it.

4

I agree, the documentation of FString::Empty sounds more like a static function and not like a clear.

“Create empty string of given size with zero terminating character”