16.2. Container Design

A container is an object that holds other objects. Examples are lists, vectors, and associative arrays. In general, you can add objects to a container and remove objects from it.

Naturally, this idea can be presented to users in many different ways. The C++ standard library containers were designed to meet two criteria: to provide the maximum freedom in the design of an individual container, while at the same time allowing containers to present a common interface to users. This allows optimal efficiency in the implementation of containers and enables users to write code that is independent of the particular container used.