What are C++ functors and their uses?

Question

I keep hearing a lot about functors in C++. Can someone give me an overview as to what they are and in what cases they would be useful?

Answer 1

Little addition. You can use boost::function, to create functors from functions and methods, like this:

class Foo
{
public:
    void operator () (int i) { printf("Foo %d", i); }
};
void Bar(int i) { printf("Bar %d", i); }
Foo foo;
boost::function f(foo);//wrap functor
f(1);//prints "Foo 1"
boost::function b(&Bar);//wrap normal function
b(1);//prints "Bar 1"

and you can use boost::bind to add state to this functor

boost::function f1 = boost::bind(foo, 2);
f1();//no more argument, function argument stored in f1
//and this print "Foo 2" (:
//and normal function
boost::function b1 = boost::bind(&Bar, 2);
b1();// print "Bar 2"

and most useful, with boost::bind and boost::function you can create functor from class method, actually this is a delegate:

class SomeClass
{
    std::string state_;
public:
    SomeClass(const char* s) : state_(s) {}

    void method( std::string param )
    {
        std::cout << state_ << param << std::endl;
    }
};
SomeClass *inst = new SomeClass("Hi, i am ");
boost::function< void (std::string) > callback;
callback = boost::bind(&SomeClass::method, inst, _1);//create delegate
//_1 is a placeholder it holds plase for parameter
callback("useless");//prints "Hi, i am useless"

You can create list or vector of functors

std::list< boost::function > events;
//add some events
....
//call them
std::for_each(
        events.begin(), events.end(), 
        boost::bind( boost::apply(), _1, e));

There is one problem with all this stuff, compiler error messages is not human readable :)