Is Iterator initialization inside for loop considered bad style, and why?

Question

Typically you will find STL code like this:

for (SomeClass::SomeContainer::iterator Iter = m_SomeMemberContainerVar.begin(); Iter != m_SomeMemberContainerVar.end         


        

Answer 1

Another alternative is to use a foreach macro, for example boost foreach:

BOOST_FOREACH( ContainedType item, m_SomeMemberContainerVar )
{
   mangle( item );
}

I know macros are discouraged in modern c++, but until the auto keyword is widely available this is the best way I've found to get something that is concise and readable, and still completely typesafe and fast. You can implement your macro using whichever initialization style gets you better performance.

There's also a note on the linked page about redefining BOOST_FOREACH as foreach to avoid the annoying all caps.