CGAL users discussion list

[Simon Giraudot <>]

Hi everybody,


The CGAL Point Set Processing package provides the user with many 
algorithms, most of them using the following API:

template <typename Iterator, [...]>
void algorithm (Iterator begin, Iterator end, [...] )

The first 2 arguments are iterators that indicate where to begin and 
where to stop and, in my opinion, could be easily replaced by anything 
following a Range concept ( 
http://doc.cgal.org/4.7/Circulator/classRange.html ). It seems to me 
that calling these functions always comes to doing 
"algorithm(range.begin(), range.end(), ...)", so having a range-based 
API "algorithm (range, ...)" would be simpler and equally generic.

Is there a good reason (other than historical) why this is not how the 
API of Point Set Processing works? If not, do you think it would be 
reasonable to change it this way? (provided we also keep the 
iterator-based version for backward compatibility)


Thanks,

--
Simon Giraudot, PhD
R&D Engineer
GeometryFactory - http://geometryfactory.com/