417

The common example for C++11 range-based for() loops is always something simple like this:

std::vector<int> numbers = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 };
for ( auto xyz : numbers )
{
     std::cout << xyz << std::endl;
}

In which case xyz is an int. But, what happens when we have something like a map? What is the type of the variable in this example:

std::map< foo, bar > testing = { /*...blah...*/ };
for ( auto abc : testing )
{
    std::cout << abc << std::endl;         // ? should this give a foo? a bar?
    std::cout << abc->first << std::endl;  // ? or is abc an iterator?
}

When the container being traversed is something simple, it looks like range-based for() loops will give us each item, not an iterator. Which is nice...if it was iterator, first thing we'd always have to do is to dereference it anyway.

But I'm confused as to what to expect when it comes to things like maps and multimaps.

(I'm still on g++ 4.4, while range-based loops are in g++ 4.6+, so I haven't had the chance to try it yet.)

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1
  • 7
    The range for statement does an unholy dance with the standard library std::begin and std::end functions or member functions under the same name. Commented Aug 7, 2011 at 1:55

5 Answers 5

Reset to default
621

Each element of the container is a map<K, V>::value_type, which is a typedef for std::pair<const K, V>. Consequently, in C++17 or higher, you can write

for (auto& [key, value]: myMap) {
    std::cout << key << " has value " << value << std::endl;
}

or as

for (const auto& [key, value]: myMap) {
    std::cout << key << " has value " << value << std::endl;
}

if you don't plan on modifying the values.

In C++11 and C++14, you can use enhanced for loops to extract out each pair on its own, then manually extract the keys and values:

for (auto& kv : myMap) {
    std::cout << kv.first << " has value " << kv.second << std::endl;
}

You could also consider marking the kv variable const if you want a read-only view of the values.

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4 Comments

Related links I've found really helpful as I've studied this, in this order from most-to-least helpful: 1) [MOST EXCELLENT article] thispointer.com/how-to-iterate-over-an-unordered_map-in-c11, 2) [EXCELLENT GENERAL INFO on iterators] cplusplus.com/reference/iterator, 3) [cplusplus.com std::unordered_map reference pg] cplusplus.com/reference/unordered_map/unordered_map, 4) [cppreference.com std::unordered_map reference pg] en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/container/unordered_map, 5) see also my answer here.
the last edit, adding const in the last code example, is unnecessary and does not fit with the author's original context. Also, it's not idiomatic to put const at that position every time. E.g., you should not use const if you want to modify the values or call the non-const method.
Also note that we can't use both std::map<K, V>::value_type and std::pair<const K, V> for structured binding declaration(e.g. [key, value]).
@starriet차주녕 That last edit threw me for a loop, too, so I just went ahead and reverted it to make sense with the sentence that was below.
106

In C++17 this is called structured bindings, which allows for the following:

std::map< foo, bar > testing = { /*...blah...*/ };
for ( const auto& [ k, v ] : testing )
{
  std::cout << k << "=" << v << "\n";
}
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4 Comments

Ist it possible to get a const & to the key, but a non-const reference to the value? (because that's what map::value_type does...)
@peterchen: k is const if you use for(auto&[k,v]:testing)
cpppreference on structured bindings en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/structured_binding
If you're compiling with GCC you need version 7 or better for structured bindings: gcc.gnu.org/projects/cxx-status.html
29

From this paper: http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2006/n2049.pdf

for( type-specifier-seq simple-declarator : expression ) statement

is syntactically equivalent to

{
    typedef decltype(expression) C;
    auto&& rng(expression);
    for (auto begin(std::For<C>::begin(rng)), end(std::For<C>::end(rng)); begin != end; ++ begin) {
        type-specifier-seq simple-declarator(*begin);
        statement
    }
}

So you can clearly see that what is abc in your case will be std::pair<key_type, value_type >. So for printing you can do access each element by abc.first and abc.second

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16

If you only want to see the keys/values from your map and like using boost, you can use the boost adaptors with the range based loops:

for (const auto& value : myMap | boost::adaptors::map_values)
{
    std::cout << value << std::endl;
}

there is an equivalent boost::adaptors::key_values

http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_51_0/libs/range/doc/html/range/reference/adaptors/reference/map_values.html

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3

If copy assignment operator of foo and bar is cheap (eg. int, char, pointer etc), you can do the following:

foo f; bar b;
BOOST_FOREACH(boost::tie(f,b),testing)
{
  cout << "Foo is " << f << " Bar is " << b;
}
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2 Comments

First snippet of code is not using a "C++11 range-based for()". It is not an answer to "C++11: how to use range-based for() loop with std::map?"
@ytj It is already mentioned in the answer that it doesn't work. I don't want to remove that so that new users don't have to try it and find out the fact again.

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