From: Mathias Gaunard (mathias.gaunard_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-12-09 14:30:07
me22 wrote:
> I'm fairly certain that this does not need to be the case.
>
> There was a thread a while back about going though the sources to look
> for uses of list::size exactly because it could be O(n) to ensure that
> there was always an O(1) empty-using function as an alternative to
> size.
I thought containers were only supposed to provide operations if those
were efficient.
If std::list::size is linear, then it shouldn't have been provided and
std::count should have been used instead.
I do not have the time to check the spec though, so I'll believe you if
you say it's not guaranteed to be O(1).