(accelerated C++) chapter managing memory

Question

I am going through accelerated C++ and I am stuck in exercise 10.3 and I have literally no clue how to even start. I would like to mention here that its not homework exercise and I am reading it just to gain confidence in C++ . The question is shown below .

Rewrite the median function from §8.1.1/140 so that we can call it with either a vector or a built-in array. The function should allow containers of any arithmetic type.

The code for above question is given below

template <class T>
 T median( vector<T> v)
 {
    typedef typename vector<T>::size_type vec_sz;
     vec_sz size = v.size();
     if( size == 0 )
     {
         throw domain_error(" median of an empty vector");
     }
     sort( v.begin(), v.end() );
     vec_sz mid = size /2;
     return size%2 == 0 ? ( v[mid]+v[mid+1])/2 : v[mid] ;
 }

I have no clue what to do next. Any help or criticism will be beneficial to me. Thanks and regards

Answer 1

I realize that the question is quite old but as I'm currently working through the same book I figured I would post my solution in the hope that it may help someone else.

// median.hpp

#include <algorithm>          // sort
#include <stdexcept>          //domain_error
#include <vector>

template <typename T, typename In>
T median(In begin, In end)
{
    if (begin == end)
        throw std::domain_error("median of an empty vector");
    
    std::vector<T> v { };
    while (begin != end)
    {
        v.push_back(*begin++);
    }
    
    std::sort(v.begin(), v.end());
    
    typedef typename std::vector<T>::size_type vec_sz;
    
    vec_sz vSize = v.size();
    vec_sz mid = vSize/2;
    
    return vSize % 2 == 0   ? ( v[mid] + v[mid - 1] ) / 2
                            : v[mid];
}