Is std::vector so much slower than plain arrays?

Question

I\'ve always thought it\'s the general wisdom that std::vector is \"implemented as an array,\" blah blah blah. Today I went down and tested it, and it seems to

Answer 1

I just want to mention that vector (and smart_ptr) is just a thin layer add on top of raw arrays (and raw pointers). And actually the access time of an vector in continuous memory is faster than array. The following code shows the result of initialize and access vector and array.

#include 
#include 
#include 
#define SIZE 20000
int main() {
    srand (time(NULL));
    vector> vector2d;
    vector2d.reserve(SIZE);
    int index(0);
    boost::posix_time::ptime start_total = boost::posix_time::microsec_clock::local_time();
    //  timer start - build + access
    for (int i = 0; i < SIZE; i++) {
        vector2d.push_back(vector(SIZE));
    }
    boost::posix_time::ptime start_access = boost::posix_time::microsec_clock::local_time();
    //  timer start - access
    for (int i = 0; i < SIZE; i++) {
        index = rand()%SIZE;
        for (int j = 0; j < SIZE; j++) {

            vector2d[index][index]++;
        }
    }
    boost::posix_time::ptime end = boost::posix_time::microsec_clock::local_time();
    boost::posix_time::time_duration msdiff = end - start_total;
    cout << "Vector total time: " << msdiff.total_milliseconds() << "milliseconds.\n";
    msdiff = end - start_acess;
    cout << "Vector access time: " << msdiff.total_milliseconds() << "milliseconds.\n"; 


    int index(0);
    int** raw2d = nullptr;
    raw2d = new int*[SIZE];
    start_total = boost::posix_time::microsec_clock::local_time();
    //  timer start - build + access
    for (int i = 0; i < SIZE; i++) {
        raw2d[i] = new int[SIZE];
    }
    start_access = boost::posix_time::microsec_clock::local_time();
    //  timer start - access
    for (int i = 0; i < SIZE; i++) {
        index = rand()%SIZE;
        for (int j = 0; j < SIZE; j++) {

            raw2d[index][index]++;
        }
    }
    end = boost::posix_time::microsec_clock::local_time();
    msdiff = end - start_total;
    cout << "Array total time: " << msdiff.total_milliseconds() << "milliseconds.\n";
    msdiff = end - start_acess;
    cout << "Array access time: " << msdiff.total_milliseconds() << "milliseconds.\n"; 
    for (int i = 0; i < SIZE; i++) {
        delete [] raw2d[i];
    }
    return 0;
}

The output is:

    Vector total time: 925milliseconds.
    Vector access time: 4milliseconds.
    Array total time: 30milliseconds.
    Array access time: 21milliseconds.

So the speed will be almost the same if you use it properly. (as others mentioned using reserve() or resize()).