Deleting elements from stl set while iterating through it does not invalidate the iterators.
- by pedromanoel
I need to go through a set and remove elements that meet a predefined criteria.
This is the test code I wrote:
#include <set>
#include <algorithm>
void printElement(int value) {
std::cout << value << " ";
}
int main() {
int initNum[] = { 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 };
std::set<int> numbers(initNum, initNum + 10);
// print '0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9'
std::for_each(numbers.begin(), numbers.end(), printElement);
std::set<int>::iterator it = numbers.begin();
// iterate through the set and erase all even numbers
for (; it != numbers.end(); ++it) {
int n = *it;
if (n % 2 == 0) {
// wouldn't invalidate the iterator?
numbers.erase(it);
}
}
// print '1 3 5 7 9'
std::for_each(numbers.begin(), numbers.end(), printElement);
return 0;
}
At first, I thought that erasing an element from the set while iterating through it would invalidate the iterator, and the increment at the for loop would have undefined behavior. Even though, I executed this test code and all went well, and I can't explain why.
My question:
Is this the defined behavior for std sets or is this implementation specific? I am using gcc 4.3.3 on ubuntu 10.04 (32-bit version), by the way.
Thanks!
