How to search for an element in an stl list?

You use std::find from <algorithm>, which works equally well for std::list and std::vector. std::vector does not have its own search/find function.

#include <list>
#include <algorithm>

int main()
{
    std::list<int> ilist;
    ilist.push_back(1);
    ilist.push_back(2);
    ilist.push_back(3);

    std::list<int>::iterator findIter = std::find(ilist.begin(), ilist.end(), 1);
}

Note that this works for built-in types like int as well as standard library types like std::string by default because they have operator== provided for them. If you are using using std::find on a container of a user-defined type, you should overload operator== to allow std::find to work properly - see EqualityComparable concept.

No, not directly in the std::list template itself. You can however use std::find algorithm like that:

std::list<int> my_list;
//...
int some_value = 12;
std::list<int>::iterator iter = std::find (my_list.begin(), my_list.end(), some_value);
// now variable iter either represents valid iterator pointing to the found element,
// or it will be equal to my_list.end()

Besides using std::find (from algorithm), you can also use std::find_if (which is, IMO, better than std::find), or other find algorithm from this list

---

#include <list>
#include <algorithm>
#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    std::list<int> myList{ 5, 19, 34, 3, 33 };
    

    auto it = std::find_if( std::begin( myList ),
                            std::end( myList ),
                            [&]( const int v ){ return 0 == ( v % 17 ); } );
        
    if ( myList.end() == it )
    {
        std::cout << "item not found" << std::endl;
    }
    else
    {
        const int pos = std::distance( myList.begin(), it ) + 1;
        std::cout << "item divisible by 17 found at position " << pos << std::endl;
    }
}