Preface Acknowledgments Introducton Chapter 1: Containers Item 1: Choose your containers with care. Item 2: Beware the illusion of container-independent code. Item 3: Make copying cheap and correct for objects in containers. Item 4: Call empty instead of checking size() against zero. Item 5: Prefer range member functions to their single-element counterparts. Item 6: Be alert for C++’s most vexing parse. Item 7: When using containers of newed pointers, remember to delete the pointers before the container is destroyed. Item 8: Never create containers of auto_ptrs. Item 9: Choose carefully among erasing options. Item 10: Be aware of allocator conventions and restrictions. Item 11: Understand the legitimate uses of custom allocators. Item 12: Have realistic expectations about the thread safety of STL containers. Chapter 2: vector and string Item 13: Prefer vector and string to dynamically allocated arrays. Item 14: Use reserve to avoid unnecessary reallocations. Item 15: Be aware of variations in string implementations. Item 16: Know how to pass vector and string data to legacy APIs. Item 17: Use “the swap trick” to trim excess capacity. Item 18: Avoid using vector<bool>. Chapter 3: Associative Containers Item 19: Understand the difference between equality and equivalence. Item 20: Specify comparison types for associative containers of pointers. Item 21: Always have comparison functions return false for equal values. Item 22: Avoid in-place key modification in set and multiset. Item 23: Consider replacing associative containers with sorted vectors. Item 24: Choose carefully between map::operator[] and map::insert when efficiency is important. Item 25: Familiarize yourself with the nonstandard hashed containers. Chapter 4: Iterators Item 26: Prefer iterator to const_iterator, reverse_iterator, and const_reverse_iterator. Item 27: Use distance and advance to convert const_iterators to iterators. Item 28: Understand how to use a reverse_iterator’s base iterator. Item 29: Consider istreambuf_iterators for character by character input. Chapter 5: Algorithms Item 30: Make sure destination ranges are big enough. Item 31: Know your sorting options. Item 32: Follow remove-like algorithms by erase if you really want to remove something. Item 33: Be wary of remove-like algorithms on containers of pointers. Item 34: Note which algorithms expect sorted ranges. Item 35: Implement simple case-insensitive string comparisons via mismatch or lexicographical_compare. Item 36: Understand the proper implementation of copy_if. Item 37: Use accumulate or for_each to summarize ranges. Chapter 6: Functors, Functor Classes, Functions, etc. Item 38: Design functor classes for pass-by-value. Item 39: Make predicates pure functions. Item 40: Make functor classes adaptable. Item 41: Understand the reasons for ptr_fun, mem_fun, and mem_fun_ref. Item 42: Make sure less<T> means operator<. Chapter 7: Programming with the STL Item 43: Prefer algorithm calls to hand-written loops. Item 44: Prefer member functions to algorithms with the same names. Item 45: Distinguish among count, find, binary_search, lower_bound, upper_bound, and equal_range. Item 46: Consider function objects instead of functions as algorithm parameters. Item 47: Avoid producing write-only code. Item 48: Always #include the proper headers. Item 49: Learn to decipher STL-related compiler diagnostics. Item 50: Familiarize yourself with STL-related web sites. Bibliography Appendix A: Locales and Case-Insensitive String Comparisons Appendix B: Remarks on Microsoft’s STL Platforms Index