std::map::clear and elements' destructors

Documentation is right, it does get called.

The destruction will be done by the method std::allocator<T>::deallocate(). Trace through that in your debugger.

http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/std/memory/allocator/

The destructor does get called. Here is an example to illustrate:

#include <iostream>
#include <map>

class A
{
 public:
  A() { std::cout << "Constructor " << this << std::endl; }
  A(const A& other) { std::cout << "Copy Constructor " << this << std::endl; }
  ~A() { std::cout << "Destructor " << this <<std::endl; }
};

int main()
{
  std::map<std::string, A> mp;

  A a;

  mp.insert(std::pair<std::string, A>("hello", a));
  mp.clear();

  std::cout << "Ending" << std::endl;
}

This will report an output similar to this:

Constructor 0xbf8ba47a
Copy Constructor 0xbf8ba484
Copy Constructor 0xbf8ba48c
Copy Constructor 0x950f034
Destructor 0xbf8ba48c
Destructor 0xbf8ba484
Destructor 0x950f034
Ending
Destructor 0xbf8ba47a

So, you can see that the destructors get called by the calling the clear function.