What's the time complexity of iterating through a std::set/std::map?
In the draft C++11 standard N3337 the answer can be found in § 24.2.1 paragraph 8:
All the categories of iterators require only those functions that are realizable for a given category in constant time (amortized).
Since each operation on an iterator must be constant time, iterating through n
elements must be O(n)
.
I believe that it is linear in the size of the set/map, but not so sure.
That is correct. Iterating through an entire set or map is O(N)