C++ Primer Plus

The vector Template Class

Chapter 4 touched briefly on the vector class. We’ll look more closely at it now. In computing, the term vector corresponds to an array rather than to the mathematical vector discussed in Chapter 11, “Working with Classes.” (Mathematically, an N-dimensional mathematical vector can be represented by a set of N components, so in that aspect, a mathematical vector is like an N-dimensional array. However, a mathematical vector has additional properties, such as inner and outer products, that a computer vector doesn’t necessarily have.) A computing-style vector holds a set of like values that can be accessed randomly. That is, you can use, say, an index to directly access the 10th element of a vector without having to access ...