What's the point of iter_swap?

Question

I was just wondering, why would anybody write this:

std::iter_swap(i, k);

instead of this?

std::swap(*i, *k);   // saved a          


        

Answer 1

From the SGI docs (here):

[1] Strictly speaking, iter_swap is redundant. It exists only for technical reasons: in some circumstances, some compilers have difficulty performing the type deduction required to interpret swap(*a, *b).