iterating over an STL collection

A set of data is represented in STL by a pair of iterators. The first iterator references the first element and the last iterator references one past the last element. This is represented in half-open interval notation as:

[first, last)

Iterating:

Instead of the typical C iteration:


        for (i = 0; i < count; i++)
        {
            arrayBase[i]; /* element */
        }

In STL we use:


        for (i = first; i != last; ++i)
        {
            (*i);	// dereferenced object
        }

Never dereference the "last" iterator. It can only be used for comparing with the "first" iterator.

(*last) is undefined.