How do I erase an element from std::vector<> by

Question

I have a std::vector<int>, and I want to delete the n'th element. How do I do that?

std::vector<int> vec;

vec.push_back(6);
vec.push_back(-17);
vec.push_back(12);

vec.erase(???);

Answer 1

If you have an unordered vector you can take advantage of the fact that it's unordered and use something I saw from Dan Higgins at CPPCON

template< typename TContainer >
static bool EraseFromUnorderedByIndex( TContainer& inContainer, size_t inIndex )
{
    if ( inIndex < inContainer.size() )
    {
        if ( inIndex != inContainer.size() - 1 )
            inContainer[inIndex] = inContainer.back();
        inContainer.pop_back();
        return true;
    }
    return false;
}

Since the list order doesn't matter, just take the last element in the list and copy it over the top of the item you want to remove, then pop and delete the last item.

Answer 2

The previous answers assume that you always have a signed index. Sadly, std::vector uses size_type for indexing, and difference_type for iterator arithmetic, so they don't work together if you have "-Wconversion" and friends enabled. This is another way to answer the question, while being able to handle both signed and unsigned:

To remove:

template<class T, class I, class = typename std::enable_if<std::is_integral<I>::value>::type>
void remove(std::vector<T> &v, I index)
{
    const auto &iter = v.cbegin() + gsl::narrow_cast<typename std::vector<T>::difference_type>(index);
    v.erase(iter);
}

To take:

template<class T, class I, class = typename std::enable_if<std::is_integral<I>::value>::type>
T take(std::vector<T> &v, I index)
{
    const auto &iter = v.cbegin() + gsl::narrow_cast<typename std::vector<T>::difference_type>(index);

    auto val = *iter;
    v.erase(iter);

    return val;
}

Answer 3

Actually, the erase function works for two profiles:

• Removing a single element

  iterator erase (iterator position);
  

• Removing a range of elements

  iterator erase (iterator first, iterator last);
  

Since std::vec.begin() marks the start of container and if we want to delete the ith element in our vector, we can use:

vec.erase(vec.begin() + index);

If you look closely, vec.begin() is just a pointer to the starting position of our vector and adding the value of i to it increments the pointer to i position, so instead we can access the pointer to the ith element by:

&vec[i]

So we can write:

vec.erase(&vec[i]); // To delete the ith element

Answer 4

To delete an element use the following way:

// declaring and assigning array1 
std:vector<int> array1 {0,2,3,4};

// erasing the value in the array
array1.erase(array1.begin()+n);

For a more broad overview you can visit: http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/vector/vector/erase/

Answer 5

The erase method will be used in two ways:

1. Erasing single element:

   vector.erase( vector.begin() + 3 ); // Deleting the fourth element
   

2. Erasing range of elements:

   vector.erase( vector.begin() + 3, vector.begin() + 5 ); // Deleting from fourth element to sixth element
   

Answer 6

To delete a single element, you could do:

std::vector<int> vec;

vec.push_back(6);
vec.push_back(-17);
vec.push_back(12);

// Deletes the second element (vec[1])
vec.erase(vec.begin() + 1);

Or, to delete more than one element at once:

// Deletes the second through third elements (vec[1], vec[2])
vec.erase(vec.begin() + 1, vec.begin() + 3);