What's faster, iterating an STL vector with vector::iterator or with at()?
c++, iterator, performance, stl, vector
Solution
Why not write a test and find out?
Edit: My bad - I thought I was timing the optimised version but wasn't. On my machine, compiled with g++ -O2, the iterator version is slightly slower than the operator[] version, but probably not significantly so.
#include <vector>
#include <iostream>
#include <ctime>
using namespace std;
int main() {
const int BIG = 20000000;
vector <int> v;
for ( int i = 0; i < BIG; i++ ) {
v.push_back( i );
}
int now = time(0);
cout << "start" << endl;
int n = 0;
for(vector<int>::iterator it = v.begin(); it != v.end(); ++it) {
n += *it;
}
cout << time(0) - now << endl;
now = time(0);
for(size_t i = 0; i < v.size(); ++i) {
n += v[i];
}
cout << time(0) - now << endl;
return n != 0;
}
Problem
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?"; } ```