Namespaces
Variants
Views
Actions

std::equal_range

From cppreference.com
< cpp‎ | algorithm
 
 
Algorithm library
Constrained algorithms and algorithms on ranges (C++20)
Constrained algorithms, e.g. ranges::copy, ranges::sort, ...
Execution policies (C++17)
Non-modifying sequence operations
Batch operations
(C++17)
Search operations
(C++11)                (C++11)(C++11)

Modifying sequence operations
Copy operations
(C++11)
(C++11)
Swap operations
Transformation operations
Generation operations
Removing operations
Order-changing operations
(until C++17)(C++11)
(C++20)(C++20)
Sampling operations
(C++17)

Sorting and related operations
Partitioning operations
Sorting operations
Binary search operations
(on partitioned ranges)
equal_range
Set operations (on sorted ranges)
Merge operations (on sorted ranges)
Heap operations
Minimum/maximum operations
(C++11)
(C++17)
Lexicographical comparison operations
Permutation operations
C library
Numeric operations
Operations on uninitialized memory
 
Defined in header <algorithm>
(1)
template< class ForwardIt, class T >

std::pair<ForwardIt, ForwardIt>

    equal_range( ForwardIt first, ForwardIt last, const T& value );
(until C++20)
template< class ForwardIt, class T >

constexpr std::pair<ForwardIt, ForwardIt>

    equal_range( ForwardIt first, ForwardIt last, const T& value );
(since C++20)
(2)
template< class ForwardIt, class T, class Compare >

std::pair<ForwardIt, ForwardIt>
    equal_range( ForwardIt first, ForwardIt last,

                 const T& value, Compare comp );
(until C++20)
template< class ForwardIt, class T, class Compare >

constexpr std::pair<ForwardIt, ForwardIt>
    equal_range( ForwardIt first, ForwardIt last,

                 const T& value, Compare comp );
(since C++20)

Returns a range containing all elements equivalent to value in the partitioned range [firstlast).

1) The equivalence is checked using operator<:

Returns the results of std::lower_bound(first, last, value) and std::upper_bound(first, last, value).

If any of the following conditions is satisfied, the behavior is undefined:

  • For any element elem of [firstlast), bool(elem < value) does not imply !bool(value < elem).
  • The elements elem of [firstlast) are not partitioned with respect to expressions bool(elem < value) and !bool(value < elem).
(until C++20)

Equivalent to std::equal_range(first, last, value, std::less{}).

(since C++20)
2) The equivalence is checked using comp:
Returns the results of std::lower_bound(first, last, value, comp) and std::upper_bound(first, last, value, comp).
If any of the following conditions is satisfied, the behavior is undefined:
  • For any element elem of [firstlast), bool(comp(elem, value)) does not imply !bool(comp(value, elem)).
  • The elements elem of [firstlast) are not partitioned with respect to expressions bool(comp(elem, value)) and !bool(comp(value, elem)).

Contents

[edit] Parameters

first, last - the partitioned range of elements to examine
value - value to compare the elements to
comp - binary predicate which returns ​true if the first argument is ordered before the second.

The signature of the predicate function should be equivalent to the following:

 bool pred(const Type1 &a, const Type2 &b);

While the signature does not need to have const &, the function must not modify the objects passed to it and must be able to accept all values of type (possibly const) Type1 and Type2 regardless of value category (thus, Type1 & is not allowed, nor is Type1 unless for Type1 a move is equivalent to a copy(since C++11)).
The types Type1 and Type2 must be such that an object of type T can be implicitly converted to both Type1 and Type2, and an object of type ForwardIt can be dereferenced and then implicitly converted to both Type1 and Type2. ​

Type requirements
-
ForwardIt must meet the requirements of LegacyForwardIterator.
-
Compare must meet the requirements of BinaryPredicate. It is not required to satisfy Compare.

[edit] Return value

A std::pair containing a pair of iterators, where

  • first is an iterator to the first element of the range [firstlast) not ordered before value (or last if no such element is found), and
  • second is an iterator to the first element of the range [firstlast) ordered after value (or last if no such element is found).

[edit] Complexity

The number of comparisons performed is logarithmic in the distance between first and last (At most 2 * log
2
(last - first) + O(1)
comparisons). However, for non-LegacyRandomAccessIterators, the number of iterator increments is linear. Notably, std::set and std::multiset iterators are not random access, and so their member functions std::set::equal_range (resp. std::multiset::equal_range) should be preferred.

[edit] Notes

Although std::equal_range only requires [firstlast) to be partitioned, this algorithm is usually used in the case where [firstlast) is sorted, so that the binary search is valid for any value.

On top of the requirements of std::lower_bound and std::upper_bound, std::equal_range also requires operator< or comp to be asymmetric (i.e., a < b and b < a always have different results).

Therefore, the intermediate results of binary search can be shared by std::lower_bound and std::upper_bound. For example, the result of the std::lower_bound call can be used as the argument of first in the std::upper_bound call.

[edit] Possible implementation

equal_range (1)
template<class ForwardIt, class T>
std::pair<ForwardIt, ForwardIt> 
    equal_range(ForwardIt first, ForwardIt last, const T& value)
{
    return std::make_pair(std::lower_bound(first, last, value),
                          std::upper_bound(first, last, value));
}
equal_range (2)
template<class ForwardIt, class T, class Compare>
std::pair<ForwardIt, ForwardIt>
    equal_range(ForwardIt first, ForwardIt last, const T& value, Compare comp)
{
    return std::make_pair(std::lower_bound(first, last, value, comp),
                          std::upper_bound(first, last, value, comp));
}

[edit] Example

#include <algorithm>
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
 
struct S
{
    int number;
    char name;
    // note: name is ignored by this comparison operator
    bool operator<(const S& s) const { return number < s.number; }
};
 
struct Comp
{
    bool operator()(const S& s, int i) const { return s.number < i; }
    bool operator()(int i, const S& s) const { return i < s.number; }
};
 
int main()
{
    // note: not ordered, only partitioned w.r.t. S defined below
    const std::vector<S> vec{{1, 'A'}, {2, 'B'}, {2, 'C'},
                             {2, 'D'}, {4, 'G'}, {3, 'F'}};
    const S value{2, '?'};
 
    std::cout << "Compare using S::operator<(): ";
    const auto p = std::equal_range(vec.begin(), vec.end(), value);
 
    for (auto i = p.first; i != p.second; ++i)
        std::cout << i->name << ' ';
 
    std::cout << "\n" "Using heterogeneous comparison: ";
    const auto p2 = std::equal_range(vec.begin(), vec.end(), 2, Comp{});
 
    for (auto i = p2.first; i != p2.second; ++i)
        std::cout << i->name << ' ';
    std::cout << '\n';
}

Output:

Compare using S::operator<(): B C D 
Using heterogeneous comparison: B C D

[edit] Defect reports

The following behavior-changing defect reports were applied retroactively to previously published C++ standards.

DR Applied to Behavior as published Correct behavior
LWG 270 C++98 Compare was required to satisfy Compare and T was required
to be LessThanComparable (strict weak ordering required)
only a partitioning is required;
heterogeneous comparisons permitted
LWG 384 C++98 at most 2 * log(last - first) + 1 comparisons
were allowed, which is not implementable[1]
corrected to
2 * log
2
(last - first) + O(1)
  1. Applying equal_range to a single-element range requires 2 comparisons, but at most 1 comparison is allowed by the complexity requirement.

[edit] See also

returns an iterator to the first element not less than the given value
(function template) [edit]
returns an iterator to the first element greater than a certain value
(function template) [edit]
determines if an element exists in a partially-ordered range
(function template) [edit]
divides a range of elements into two groups
(function template) [edit]
determines if two sets of elements are the same
(function template) [edit]
returns range of elements matching a specific key
(public member function of std::set<Key,Compare,Allocator>) [edit]
returns range of elements matching a specific key
(public member function of std::multiset<Key,Compare,Allocator>) [edit]
returns range of elements matching a specific key
(niebloid)[edit]