Difference between vector and list

Question

I'm learning c++ language and I trying to find out what is the difference between vector's and list's. I am using visual studio tool for coding. Can someone explain what is the difference?

i think you can find lots of detailed explanations in google — Andrey Chernukha, May 28 '15 at 16:50
http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/container/vector http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/container/list — shuttle87, May 28 '15 at 16:51

score 14 · Accepted Answer · answered May 28 '15 at 16:54

A vector is a resizable array. It's elements are stored next to each other in a contiguous block of memory, so that the position of each can be calculated quickly; this is known as random access. Inserting and removing elements from the middle requires moving all the later elements, so can be rather slow.

A list is a linked list. The elements are scattered around memory, and each has pointers to the next and previous element. You can only find an element by following the chain of pointers, which might be rather slow; this is known as sequential access. But elements can be inserted and removed just by modifying a few pointers, so that can be quite fast.

score 7 · Answer 2 · answered May 28 '15 at 17:01

Here are some STL containers and what they are efficient at:

vector: dynamic array -- efficient at random access, and add/delete at end.
list : doubly-linked list -- efficient at forward/backward traversal, and insertion anywhere.
forward_list : singly-linked list -- efficient at forward traversal, and insertion anywhere.
deque : doubled ended queue -- dynamic array that also allows for efficient add/delete at beginning
array : static array -- size fixed at compile time.

Difference between vector and list

2 Answers2