C++ Container Overview

Juni 14, 2020

This is an overview of the C++ containers and their most important functions. It should help chosing the right container.

type	name	description	content		access			iterators		modifiers									operations						lookup
type	name	description	key	value	at []	front	back	forward	reverse	insert	erase	insert_after	erase_after	push_back	pop_back	push_front	pop_front	resize	merge	splice_after	remove remove_if	reverse	unique	sort	count	find contains	equal_range	lower_bound	upper_bound
sequence	array	static contiguous array		x	x	x	x	x	x
	vector	dynamic contiguous array		x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x			x	x			x
	deque	double-ended queue		x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x			x	x	x	x	x
	forward_list	singly-linked list		x		x		x				x	x			x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
	list	doubly-linked list		x		x	x	x	x	x	x			x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
associative	set	collection of unique keys, sorted by keys	x					x	x	x	x								x						x	x	x	x	x
	map	collection of key-value pairs, sorted by keys, keys are unique	x	x				x	x	x	x								x						x	x	x	x	x
	multiset	collection of keys, sorted by keys	x					x	x	x	x								x						x	x	x	x	x
	multimap	collection of key-value pairs, sorted by keys	x	x				x	x	x	x								x						x	x	x	x	x
unordered associative	unordered_set	collection of unique keys, hashed by keys	x					x		x	x								x						x	x	x
	unordered_map	collection of key-value pairs, hashed by keys, keys are unique	x	x				x		x	x								x						x	x	x
	unordered_multiset	collection of keys, hashed by keys	x					x		x	x								x						x	x	x
	unordered_multimap	collection of key-value pairs, hashed by keys	x	x				x		x	x								x						x	x	x

Queues and Stacks

Queues ans stacks are special interfaces to other containers. They offer the methods top, push, pop: