C++ Primer Plus

More Things to Do to Vectors

There are many things programmers commonly do with arrays, such as search them, sort them, randomize the order, and so on. Does the vector template class have methods for these common operations? No! The STL takes a broader view, defining nonmember functions for these operations. Thus, instead of defining a separate find() member function for each container class, it defines a single find() nonmember function that can be used for all container classes. This design philosophy saves a lot of duplicate work. For example, suppose you had 8 container classes and 10 operations to support. If each class had its own member function, you’d need 8×10, or 80, separate member function definitions. But with the STL approach, you’d ...