[ ... ]
// using vector<int>::iterator;
Here's (probably) the source of the problem: this wasn't originally
commented out.
int main()
{
vector<int> container;
for(int i=1;i<=4;i++)
{
container.push_back(i);
}
cout << "Here is what is in the container:\n";
iterator p;
The original intent (with the previous line still "executable") was that
copied from the book <<Absolute C++>>, but I cannot compile, why?
I'd say "because you ended up with a lousy book. Even when/if you fix
the code so it compiles, I'd consider it a long ways from exemplary
code. If I was going to do what it does, I'd write it something like
this:
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
void show(std::vector<int> const &container) {
std::copy(container.begin(), container.end(),
std:
stream_iterator<int>(std::cout, " "));
std::cout << "\n";
}
int main()
{
std::vector<int> container;
for(int i=1;i<=4;i++)
container.push_back(i);
std::cout << "Here is what is in the container:\n";
show(container);
std::cout << "Setting entries to 0:\n";
std::fill_n(container.begin(), container.size(), 0);
std::cout <<"Container now contains:\n";
show(container);
return 0;
}
As a generalization, I'd say almost anytime you have something like:
some_type::iterator x;
for (x=container.begin(); x!=container.end(); ++x)
do_something();
You've _probably_ made a mistake. You should probably be using an
algorithm instead. In this case, he duplicated two algorithms already in
the standard library: std::fill_n and std::copy. Far better to use than
duplicate them. Another principle is often phrased as "don't repeat
yourself" -- in the previous code, he had two repetitions of identical
code to show the contents of the container. I've moved that into a
function of its own.
