C++ Primer Plus

Functions Versus Container Methods

Sometimes you have a choice between using an STL method and an STL function. Usually, the method is the better choice. First, it should be better optimized for a particular container. Second, being a member function, it can use a template class’s memory management facilities and resize a container when needed.

Suppose, for example, that you have a list of numbers and you want to remove all instances of a certain value, say 4, from the list. If la is a list<int> object, you can use the list remove() method:

la.remove(4);  // remove all 4s from the list

After this method call, all elements with the value 4 are removed from the list, and the list is automatically resized.

There is also an STL algorithm called ...