Introduction

The C++ standard library comes with a wide range of standard containers. A container always contains a collection of data or objects. The cool thing is that containers can be used with practically any kind of object, so we just need to pick the right containers for our specific application. The STL gives us stacks, automatically growing vectors, maps, and so on. This way we can concentrate on our app and don't need to reinvent the wheel. Knowing all containers well is therefore crucial for every C++ programmer.

All containers the STL provides can be categorized as follows, which is explained in detail in the subsequent subsection:

• Contiguous storage
• List storage
• Search trees
• Hash tables
• Container adapters

Contiguous storage

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