Get the last element of a std::string

Question

I was wondering if there\'s an abbreviation or a more elegant way of getting the last character of a string like in:

char lastChar = myString.at( myString.le         


        

Answer 1

You could write a function template back that delegates to the member function for ordinary containers and a normal function that implements the missing functionality for strings:

template 
typename C::reference back(C& container)
{
    return container.back();
}

template 
typename C::const_reference back(const C& container)
{
    return container.back();
}

char& back(std::string& str)
{
    return *(str.end() - 1);
}

char back(const std::string& str)
{
    return *(str.end() - 1);
}

Then you can just say back(foo) without worrying whether foo is a string or a vector.