Topic: STL sets have mutable iterators?


Author: hough@aai.com (Al Hough)
Date: 1996/01/25
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In my April 95 copy of the DWP, I couldn't find any requirement
that a set iterator be a const_iterator. Previous STL documentation
required that for sets, an iterator was a const_iterator, thus
insuring that the return type from dereferencing a set<T>::iterator
was a const T& and not a T&.  I agreed with the behavior that a
set iterator should yield const T&, because yielding a T& would
allow users to break the "uniqueness" of the set by allowing the
possiblility that a user could modify an existing value in the
set so that it became equal to another value in the set.

What was intended here?

--
Al Hough                            email: hough@aai.com
Amerinex Artificial Intelligence    phone: (413) 256-8941
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