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What's faster, iterating an STL vector with vector::iterator or with at()?

Asked 2009-04-22T10:55:05.447
67

In terms of performance, what would work faster? Is there a difference? Is it platform dependent?

//1. Using vector<string>::iterator:
vector<string> vs = GetVector();

for(vector<string>::iterator it = vs.begin(); it != vs.end(); ++it)
{
   *it = "Am I faster?";
}

//2. Using size_t index:
for(size_t i = 0; i < vs.size(); ++i)
{
   //One option:
   vs.at(i) = "Am I faster?";
   //Another option:
   vs[i] = "Am I faster?";
}
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1 Answer

6

As everyone else here is saying, do benchmarks.

Having said that, I would argue that the iterator is faster since at() does range checking as well, i.e. it throws an out_of_range exception if the index is out of bounds. That check itself propbably incurrs some overhead.

answered 2009-04-22T11:39:06.603

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