Using initializer lists to initialize vectors Supporting tagline

I was writing code in a unit test that initialized a vector with values. And putting each push_back() on a separate line. Wishing that we were able to use the C++11 extensions at work, and initialize the vector on one line (similar to how you can statically initialize an array).

That’s when I thought about using to do it, and sure enough its quite easy.

So to write code like this:

const char* names[] = {"n0","n1","n2","n3","n4","n5","n6","n7","n8","n9","n10","n11""};
std::vector<std::string> namesAsVector = StringsToStringVector(names);

…all you need is this:

template<class T> std::vector<std::string> StringsToStringVector(T& arrayOfStrings)
{
	std::vector<std::string> vectorOfStrings;

	int count = (sizeof(T)==0)? 0 : sizeof(T)/sizeof(arrayOfStrings[0]);
	for(int i=0;i<count;i++)
	{
    	vectorOfStrings.push_back(arrayOfStrings[i]);
	}

	return vectorOfStrings;
}

This sort of thing is very useful in unit tests where you need to set up lots of test data, to test in your tests.

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