Vector Iterators Incompatible

Question

I have a class with a std::vector data member e.g.

class foo{
public:

const std::vector getVec(){return myVec;} //other stuff omitted

private:
s         


        

Answer 1

The reason you are getting this, is that the iterators are from two (or more) different copies of myVec. You are returning a copy of the vector with each call to myFoo.getVec(). So the iterators are incompatible.

Some solutions:

Return a const reference to the std::vector :

const std::vector & getVec(){return myVec;} //other stuff omitted

Another solution, probably preferable would be to get a local copy of the vector and use this to get your iterators:

const std::vector myCopy = myFoo.getVec();
std::vector::const_iterator i = myCopy.begin();
while(i != myCopy.end())
{
  //do stuff
  ++i;
}

Also +1 for not using namespace std;