Vectors
In this lesson, we'll compare vectors with arrays and see how to use C++ STL Vector.
We'll cover the following
Array vs Vector
Many times, you need a structure like an array that is dynamic in size. Vectors are dynamic arrays. Vectors, similar to an array, have contiguous memory allocation so that random access is for vectors as well.
One way to implement vectors using an array is to copy the array to a new array of double the size every time the first array is full. The amortized time complexity is for inserting elements in such a case.
Time complexity
Time complexity for vector operations are the same as arrays:
- Inserting at end -
- Inserting in between -
- Deleting last node -
- Deleting other nodes -
Operations
Here are some operations on vectors that we will be using very frequently. Read this for a complete documentation on vectors.
Include statement: #include <vector>
Please make sure you understand important vector methods and how to deal with iterators. This course will not go over these C++ concepts.
vector<int> v; // new empty vector
vector<int> v(5); // new vector of size 5
vector<boolean> v(5, true); // new vector of size 5 with all values initialized to true
v.size(); // get size
v[i]; // access ith element
v.push_back(x); // insert x at end of vector
v.pop_back(x); // delete last element
v.begin(); // get iterator to beginning
v.end(); // get iterator to end (theoretically, the element after the last element)
v.erase(v.begin() + 4); //delete 4th element
sort(v.begin(), v.end()) //sort vector
reverse(v.begin(), v.end()) // reverse the vector
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