Member function table

1、STL container的接口的定义、命名是遵循一定的规范的，从它的Member function table是可以看出的。

2、consist uniform API interface

提供统一的API，是便于操作的。

cppreference Containers library # Member function table

Iterators

NOTE:

Name convention:

1) begin 和 end

2) cbegin c的含义是const

参见下面的"cbegin and begin"章节。

3) rbegin r的含义是reverse

begin and end

Element access

front and back

Capacity

Modifiers

Name convention: delete、erase and remove

当我们想要表达“删除”的含义的时候，上述三个单词都可以使用；C++ STL选择的是erase（各种container的成员方法erase）和remove（algorithm library中有std::remove方法），这种选择的背后是有一定的缘由的：delete是C++的key word，所以为了避免名称的冲突，实现者最终选择了erase和remove；

cbegin and begin

Why cbegin and cend?

获得 const_iterator，参见 const_iterator 章节。

begin、end VS front、back

stackoverflow What is the difference between vector.back() and vector.end()?

A

Here's an illustration of which is which

v: [ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | ... | 999 ]
     🡑                      🡑     🡑
   front()                back() end()
     🡑
   begin()

where front() and back() return a (const) reference to the first and last element respectively, and end() returns an iterator (sort of a pointer) to one beyond the last element of vector. begin() returns an iterator to the first element of a vector.

These are also explained at std::vector

front access the first element back access the last element end/cend returns an iterator to the end begin/cbegin returns an iterator to the beginning

---

Subtracting one from size is because an index in C or C++ starts at zero, and not one as usually. This means, in order to access the first element of an array, or in this case of a vector, you say

v[0]

and not

v[1]

Equally for the last (nth) element, you wouldn't take size or n of an array (a vector), but rather one less, e.g.

v[size() - 1]

or

v[n - 1]