Does Using a Pointer as a Container Iterator Violate the Standard

Question

Angew made a comment that a vector using a raw pointer as it\'s iterator type was fine. That kinda threw me for a loop.

I started researching it and fou

Answer 1

§ 24.2.1

Since iterators are an abstraction of pointers, their semantics is a generalization of most of the semantics of pointers in C++. This ensures that every function template that takes iterators works as well with regular pointers.

So yes, using a pointer satisfies all of the requirements for a Random Access Iterator.

std::vector likely provides iterators for a few reasons

1. The standard says it should.

2. It would be odd if containers such as std::map or std::set provided iterators while std::vector provided only a value_type* pointer. Iterators provide consistency across the containers library.

3. It allows for specializations of the vector type eg, std::vector where a value_type* pointer would not be a valid iterator.