C++ Primer Plus

Algorithm Groups

The STL divides the algorithm library into four groups:

• Nonmodifying sequence operations

• Mutating sequence operations

• Sorting and related operations

• Generalized numeric operations

The first three groups are described in the algorithm (formerly algo.h) header file, and the fourth group, being specifically oriented toward numeric data, gets its own header file, called numeric. (Formerly, they, too, were in algo.h.)

Nonmodifying sequence operations operate on each element in a range. These operations leave a container unchanged. For example, find() and for_each() belong to this category.

Mutating sequence operations also operate on each element in a range. As the name suggests, however, they can mutate, or change, the contents ...