C++ Containers
The C++ Containers (vectors, lists, etc.) are
generic vessels capable of holding many different types of data. For
example, the following statement creates a
vector of
integers:
vector<int> v;
Containers can hold standard objects (like the
int
in the above example) as well as custom objects, as long as the objects in
the container meet a few requirements:
- The object must have a default constructor,
- an accessible destructor, and
- an accessible assignment operator.
When describing the
functions associated with these various containers, this website defines
the word
TYPE to be the object type that the container
holds. For example, in the above statement,
TYPE would be
int. Similarily, when referring to containers associated
with pairs of data (
map for example)
key_type and
value_type are used to
refer to the key and value types for that container.