mattreecebentley/plf_colony

An unordered C++ data container providing fast iteration/insertion/erasure while maintaining pointer/iterator validity to non-erased elements regardless of insertions/erasures. Provides higher-performance than std:: library containers for high-modification scenarios with unordered data.

C++

509

299 commits

updated Oct 17, 2026

plflib.org/colony.htm

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Source	Message	Score	Date
	Readers might also find `plf::colony` interesting: https://www.plflib.org/colony.htm on A fast, growable array with stable pointers in C	0	Aug 6, 2025
	Colonies/hives, which have fast insertion/erasure/iteration and preserve pointers on insertion/erasure. I remember that Cataclysm: DDA used this data structure for keeping track of the items on each map tile. https://plflib.org/colony.htm on Ask HN: What are some cool but obscure data structures you know about?	0	Jul 22, 2022
	There is already a good solution: https://www.plflib.org/colony.htm, that will [eventually] end up in the std [https://github.com/WG21-SG14/SG14/tree/master/SG14]. on Bulk Data Structures C++	0	Aug 21, 2019

README

plf::colony

An unordered data container providing fast iteration/insertion/erasure while maintaining pointer/iterator/reference validity to non-erased elements. Documentation and function descriptions here: https://plflib.org/colony.htm#functions

A conan package for colony is available here: https://conan.io/center/plf_colony
A build2 package for colony is available here: https://cppget.org/plf-colony

plf::colony is C++98/03/11/14/17/20/23-compatible.

Infographic describing the container

bucket

container

cpp

template

unordered

Significant stargazers

Dmitry Atamanov

207 followers · starred Mar 2026

Rob Parolin

188 followers · starred Aug 2016

Jean-Michaël Celerier

415 followers · starred May 2019

Guo Ci

31 followers · starred Aug 2021

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