How to retrieve all keys (or values) from a std::map and put them into a vector?

While your solution should work, it can be difficult to read depending on the skill level of your fellow programmers. Additionally, it moves functionality away from the call site. Which can make maintenance a little more difficult.

I'm not sure if your goal is to get the keys into a vector or print them to cout so I'm doing both. You may try something like this:

std::map<int, int> m;
std::vector<int> key, value;
for(std::map<int,int>::iterator it = m.begin(); it != m.end(); ++it) {
  key.push_back(it->first);
  value.push_back(it->second);
  std::cout << "Key: " << it->first << std::endl();
  std::cout << "Value: " << it->second << std::endl();
}

Or even simpler, if you are using Boost:

map<int,int> m;
pair<int,int> me; // what a map<int, int> is made of
vector<int> v;
BOOST_FOREACH(me, m) {
  v.push_back(me.first);
  cout << me.first << "\n";
}

Personally, I like the BOOST_FOREACH version because there is less typing and it is very explicit about what it is doing.


//c++0x too
std::map<int,int> mapints;
std::vector<int> vints;
for(auto const& imap: mapints)
    vints.push_back(imap.first);

There is a boost range adaptor for this purpose:

#include <boost/range/adaptor/map.hpp>
#include <boost/range/algorithm/copy.hpp>
vector<int> keys;
boost::copy(m | boost::adaptors::map_keys, std::back_inserter(keys));

There is a similar map_values range adaptor for extracting the values.