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Hello
I need to store a number of integer values which I will then search on
later to see if they exist in my container. Can someone tell me which
container would be quickest for finding these values? I can't use a
plain C array (unless I make it 2^32 in size!) since I don't know the
max integer value.
For that case, I think std::list is a better option, since the sorting will be faster
Lists are implemented using pointers to point to the previous and to the next elements, so list::sort(), is more efficient by changing pointer values, while sorting a vector involves copying objects.
The original poster talked about storing integer values. I highly doubt sorting a list of integers will be faster than sorting an array of integers. In fact, I'm pretty sure of the contrary.
And you really think that doing two pointer exchanges is faster than one integer exchange?
However, it can still be slower, since it's more or less the worst thing you
can do to the cache.
Still, you should only get one cache-miss when looking for a value, if you use a set or vector you will probably get more.