Comp Science - C++

Standard Template Library

Iterators are usually a sort of smart pointer with a bunch of operators overloaded, including the * operator. As I mentioned earlier, iterators are linked to the container class they iterate on. That is why they are declared within the container class.

Iterators in STL are linked to the containers that they iterate on. That is, a vector iterator is declared as something like: vector::iterator i; And a list iterator as: list::iterator i; Each is a separate type. Furthermore, Iterators in STL are not interchangeable in a virtual function-inheritance sense anyway because there are NO virtual functions in the base class. Furthermore, the base class is itself a template in such a way that in many cases the base isn't common to child classes the way one might expect. So there isn't much point in bothering with the base classes unless you are planning to create your own iterator. 


An iterator is used to move thru the elements an STL container (vector, list, set, map, ...) in a similar way to array indexes or pointers. The * operator dereferences an iterator (ie, is used to access the element an iterator points to) , and ++ (and -- for most iterators) increments to the next element.
Iterating over a vector with subscripts

Passing over all the elements of a vector is simple, and is usually done using subscripts instead of an iterator. The main advantage of an iterator is that it can be used by many of the functions in the header <algorithms>. 

Subscripts provide an easy, familiar way to access vector elements in much the way that array elements would be accessed.

//--- Iterating over vector with subscript.
vector v;
. . .
for (int i=0; i v;
. . .
for (vector::iterator it = v.begin(); it!=v.end(); ++it) {
    cout << *it << endl;
}

Why use iterators when subscripts work so well
There are several reasons to use iterators.

    * Not always possible. Subscripts can not be used on most of the containers (eg, list and map), so you must use iterators in many cases.
    * Flexible. It is easily to change underlying container types. For example, you might decide later that the number of insertions and deletions is so high that a list would be more efficient than a vector.
    * Member functiuons. Many of the member functions for vector use iterators, for example, assign, insert, or erase.
    * Algorithms. The <algorithm>  functions use iterators.
Operation Effect
c.insert(pos,elem)Inserts at iterator position pos a copy of elem and returns the position of the new element
c.insert(pos,n,elem) Inserts at iterator position pos n copies of elem (returns nothing)
c.insert(pos,beg,end) Inserts at iterator position pos a copy of all elements of the range [beg,end) (returns nothing)
c.push_back(elem) Appends a copy of elem at the end
c.pop_back() Removes the last element (does not return it)
c.erase(pos) Removes the element at iterator position pos and returns the position of the next element
c.erase(beg,end) Removes all elements of the range [beg,end) and returns the position of the next element
c.resize(num) Changes the number of elements to num (if size() grows, new elements are created by their default constructor)
c.resize(num,elem) Changes the number of elements to num (if size() grows, new elements are copies of elem)
c.clear() Removes all elements (makes the container empty)

vector iterator example

© Nachum Danzig 2011