Summary

In this chapter, the container types from the standard library were introduced. You learned that the way we structure data has a big impact on how efficiently we can perform certain operations on a collection of objects. The asymptotic complexity specifications of the standard library containers are key factors to consider when choosing among the different data structures.

In addition, you learned how the cache hierarchy in modern processors impacts the way we need to organize data for efficient access to memory. The importance of utilizing the cache levels efficiently cannot be stressed enough. This is one of the reasons why containers that keep their elements contiguously in memory have become the most used, such as std::vector and std::string.

In the next chapter, we will look at how we can use iterators and algorithms to operate on containers efficiently.