remove arbitrary list of items from std::vector<std::vector<T> >

Question

I have a vector of vectors, representing an array. I would like to remove rows efficiently, ie with minimal complexity and allocations

I have thought about building a new vector of vectors, copying only non-deleted rows, using move semantics, like this:

    //std::vector<std::vector<T> > values is the array to remove rows from
    //std::vector<bool> toBeDeleted contains "marked for deletion" flags for each row

    //Count the new number of remaining rows
    unsigned int newNumRows = 0;
    for(unsigned int i=0;i<numRows();i++)
    {
        if(!toBeDeleted[i])
        {
            newNumRows++;
        }
    }


    //Create a new array already sized in rows
    std::vector<std::vector<T> > newValues(newNumRows);

    //Move rows
    for(unsigned int i=0;i<numRows();i++)
    {
        if(!toBeDeleted[i])
        {
            newValues[i] = std::move(values[i]);
        }
    }

    //Set the new array and clear the old one efficiently
    values = std::move(newValues);

Is this the most effective way?

Edit : I just figured that I could avoid allocating a new array by moving rows down iteratively, this could be slightly more efficient and code is much more simple:

    unsigned int newIndex = 0;
    for(unsigned int oldIndex=0;oldIndex<values.size();oldIndex++)
    {
        if(!toBeDeleted[oldIndex])
        {
            if(oldIndex!=newIndex)
            {
                values[newIndex] = std::move(values[oldIndex]);
            }

            newIndex++;
        }
    }
    values.resize(newIndex);

Thanks!

Answer 1

This can be solved using a variation on the usual erase-remove idiom, with a lambda inside the std::remove_if that looks up the index of the current row inside an iterator range of to be removed indices:

#include <algorithm>    // find, remove_if
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>

template<class T>
using M = std::vector<std::vector<T>>; // matrix

template<class T>
std::ostream& operator<<(std::ostream& os, M<T> const& m)
{
    for (auto const& row : m) {
        for (auto const& elem : row)
            os << elem << " ";
        os << "\n";
    }
    return os;
}

template<class T, class IdxIt>
void erase_rows(M<T>& m, IdxIt first, IdxIt last)
{
    m.erase(
        std::remove_if(
            begin(m), end(m), [&](auto& row) {
            auto const row_idx = &row - &m[0];
            return std::find(first, last, row_idx) != last;
        }), 
        end(m)
    );
}

int main()
{
    auto m = M<int> { { 0, 1, 2, 3 }, { 3, 4, 5, 6 }, { 6, 7, 8, 9 }, { 1, 0, 1, 0 } };
    std::cout << m << "\n";

    auto drop = { 1, 3 };
    erase_rows(m, begin(drop), end(drop));

    std::cout << m << "\n";
}

Live Example.

Note: because from C++11 onwards, std::vector has move semantics, shuffling rows around in your std::vector<std::vector<T>> is done using simple pointer manipulations, regardless of your type T (it would be quite different if you want column-deletion, though!).