Get numeric index from Boost multi-index iterator

Question

I'm storing a bunch of the following

struct Article {
    std::string title;
    unsigned db_id;     // id field in MediaWiki database dump
};

in a Boost.MultiIndex container, defined as

typedef boost::multi_index_container<
    Article,
    indexed_by<
        random_access<>,
        hashed_unique<tag<by_db_id>,
                      member<Article, unsigned, &Article::db_id> >,
        hashed_unique<tag<by_title>,
                      member<Article, std::string, &Article::title> >
    >
> ArticleSet;

Now I've got two iterators, one from index<by_title> and one from index<by_id>. What is the easiest way to transform these to indexes into the random access part of the container, without adding a data member to struct Article?

Answer 1

Every index supports generation of an iterator by value using iterator_to. If you already have an iterator to the target value in one index, you could use this to convert to an iterator in another index.

iterator       iterator_to(const value_type& x);
const_iterator iterator_to(const value_type& x)const;

For conversion to index you can likely follow the model in random_access_index.hpp:

  iterator erase(iterator first,iterator last)
  {
    BOOST_MULTI_INDEX_CHECK_VALID_ITERATOR(first);
    BOOST_MULTI_INDEX_CHECK_VALID_ITERATOR(last);
    BOOST_MULTI_INDEX_CHECK_IS_OWNER(first,*this);
    BOOST_MULTI_INDEX_CHECK_IS_OWNER(last,*this);
    BOOST_MULTI_INDEX_CHECK_VALID_RANGE(first,last);
    BOOST_MULTI_INDEX_RND_INDEX_CHECK_INVARIANT;
    difference_type n=last-first;
    relocate(end(),first,last);
    while(n--)pop_back();
    return last;
  }

Answer 2

iterator_to is a relatively new function in Boost (it's there since 1.35). It adds a little of the syntax sugar when using with default index. For older versions of Boost the function project is the only choise. You can use project as follows:

ArticleSet x;
// consider we've found something using `by_db_id` index
ArticleSet::index_const_iterator<by_db_id>::type it = 
  x.get<by_db_id>().find( SOME_ID );

// convert to default index ( `random_access<>` )
ArticleSet::const_iterator it1 = x.project<0>( it );
// iterator_to looks like:
ArticleSet::const_iterator it11 = x.iterator_to( *it );

// convert to index tagged with `by_title` tag
ArticleSet::index_const_iterator<by_title>::type it2 = x.project<by_title>( it );
// iterator_to doen't look better in this case:
ArticleSet::index_const_iterator<by_title>::type it2 = x.get<by_title>().iterator_to( *it );

// etc.