C++ STL Map vs Vector speed

Question

In the interpreter for my experimental programming language I have a symbol table. Each symbol consists of a name and a value (the value can be e.g.: of type string, int, fu

Answer 1

a std::map (O(log(n))) or a hashtable ("amortized" O(1)) would be the first choice - use custom mechanisms if you determin it's a bottleneck. Generally, using a hash or tokenizing the input is the first optimization.

Before you have profiled it, it's most important that you isolate lookup, so you can easily replace and profile it.

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std::map is likely a tad slower for a small number of elements (but then, it doesn't really matter).