Why C++ is best for Competitive Programming?
Last Updated :
11 May, 2022
C++ is the most preferred language for competitive programming. In this article, some features of C++ are discussed that make it best for competitive programming.
STL (Standard Template Library): C++ has a vast library called STL which is a collection of C++ templates to provide common programming data structures and functions such as lists, stacks, arrays, etc. that makes the code very short and increases the speed of coding. It is a library of container classes, algorithms, and iterators. For example, std::min is used to find out the smallest of the number passed to it. It returns the first of them if there is more than one.
Program 1:
C++
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
double a = 12.123;
double b = 12.456;
cout << min(a, b);
return 0;
}
|
Faster: C/C++ is faster than any other programming language in terms of speed. The C++ source code needs to become machine code. Whereas, python follows a different tactic as it is interpreted. The compilation of code is always faster than the interpretation.
Program 2:
Below program to demonstrate how to measure execution time using the clock() function:
C++
#include <bits/stdc++.h>
using namespace std;
void fun()
{
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
}
}
int main()
{
clock_t start, end;
start = clock();
fun();
end = clock();
double time_taken
= double(end - start)
/ double(CLOCKS_PER_SEC);
cout << "Time taken by program is: "
<< fixed
<< time_taken
<< setprecision(5);
cout << " sec " << endl;
return 0;
}
|
Output:
Time taken by program is: 0.000001 sec
Simple Constructs: C++ is a simple language i.e., much closer to a low-level language, therefore it’s much easier to write codes in C++ than in Java. Also, this makes the code-generation process simpler, optimized, and fast in C++ (i.e., like in Java no conversion of code to byte code first and then to machine code).
Widely used: C++ is considered to be the best choice for competitive programming by 75% of the programmers across the world, as it is usually faster than Java and Python and most of the resources are available in C++.
Templates: A template is a simple and yet very powerful tool in C++. The simple idea is to pass data type as a parameter so that we don’t need to write the same code for different data types.
Program 3:
Below is the program to demonstrate templates:
C++
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
template <typename T>
T Min(T x, T y)
{
return (x < y) ? x : y;
}
int main()
{
cout << Min(7, 3) << endl;
cout << Min('z', 'a') << endl;
return 0;
}
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Snippets: Snippets provide an easy way to implement commonly used code or functions into a larger section of code. Instead of rewriting the same code over and over again, a programmer can save the code as a snippet and simply drag and drop the snippet wherever it is needed. By using snippets, programmers and web developers can also organize common code sections into categories, creating a cleaner development environment. It also increases the coding speed, helps in coding contests, etc.
Program 4:
Below is an example of a sample snippet that can be used in competitive programming:
C++
#include <bits/stdc++.h>
using namespace std;
#define MOD 1000000007
#define endl "\n"
#define lli long long int
#define ll long long
#define mp make_pair
#define pb push_back
void solve()
{
cout << "Write your code here";
}
int main()
{
int t = 1;
while (t--) {
solve();
}
return 0;
}
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Output:
Write your code here
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