equal_range
Syntax:
#include <map> pair<iterator, iterator> equal_range( const key_type& key );
The function equal_range() returns two iterators - one to the first element that contains key, another to a point just after the last element that contains key.
For example, here is a hypothetical input-configuration loader using multimaps, strings and equal_range():
multimap<string,pair<int,int> > input_config; // read configuration from file "input.conf" to input_config readConfigFile( input_config, "input.conf" ); pair<multimap<string,pair<int,int> >::iterator,multimap<string,pair<int,int> >::iterator> ii; multimap<string,pair<int,int> >::iterator i; ii = input_config.equal_range("key"); // keyboard key-bindings // we can iterate over a range just like with begin() and end() for( i = ii.first; i != ii.second; ++i ) { // add a key binding with this key and output bindkey(i->second.first, i->second.second); } ii = input_config.equal_range("joyb"); // joystick button key-bindings for( i = ii.first; i != ii.second; ++i ) { // add a key binding with this joystick button and output bindjoyb(i->second.first, i->second.second); }