Mastering the C++17 STL

The Container Zoo

In the previous two chapters, we introduced the ideas of iterators and ranges (Chapter 2, Iterators and Ranges) and the vast library of standard generic algorithms that operate on ranges of data elements defined by pairs of those iterators (Chapter 3, The Iterator-Pair Algorithms). In this chapter, we'll look at where those data elements themselves are allocated and stored. That is, now that we know all about how to iterate, the question gains urgency: what is it that we are iterating over?

In the Standard Template Library, the answer to that question is generally: We are iterating over some sub-range of the elements contained in a container. A container is simply a C++ class (or class template) which, by its nature, contains ...