Time complexity of find() in std::map?

Question

How efficient is the find() function on the std::map class? Does it iterate through all the elements looking for the key such that it\'s O(n), or is it in a balanced tree, o

Answer 1

std::map and std::set are implemented by compiler vendors using highly balanced binary search trees (e.g. red-black tree, AVL tree).

As correctly pointed out by David, find would take O(log n) time, where n is the number of elements in the container.

But that's with primitive data types like int, long, char, double etc., not with strings.

If std:string, lets say of size 'm', is used as key, traversing the height of the balanced binary search tree will require log n comparisons of the given key with an entry of the tree.

When std::string is the key of the std::map or std::set, find and insert operations will cost O(m log n), where m is the length of given string that needs to be found.