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Declare, Initialize and Access a Vector | C++ STL

By IncludeHelp Last updated : December 11, 2023

Here, we have to declare, initialize and access a vector in C++ STL.

C++ Vector Declaration

Below is the syntax to declare a vector:

vector<data_type> vector_name;

Since, vector is just like dynamic array, when we insert elements in it, it automatically resize itself.

Dynamic Declaration of C++ Vector

We can also use, the following syntax to declare dynamic vector i.e a vector without initialization,

vector<data_type> vector_name{};

C++ Vector Initialization

If, we want to initialize a vector with initial elements, we can use following syntax,

vector<data_type> vetor_name{elements};

C++ Vector Iterator

To access/iterate elements of a vector, we need an iterator for vector like containers. We can use following syntax to declare a vector iterator:

 vector<data_type>::iterator iterator_name;

Example:

vector<int>::iterator it;

C++ vector:: begin() and vector::end() functions

Function vector::begin() return an iterator, which points to the first element in the vector and the function vector::end() returns an iterator, which points to the last element in the vector.

Example 1

Declare vector with Initialization and print the elements

#include <iostream>
#include <vector>

using namespace std;

int main() {
  // declare vector with 5 elements
  vector<int> num{10, 20, 30, 40, 50};

  // print the elements - to iterate the elements,
  // we need an iterator
  vector<int>::iterator it;

  // iterate and print the elements
  cout << "vector (num) elements: ";
  for (it = num.begin(); it != num.end(); it++) cout << *it << " ";

  return 0;
}

Output

vector (num) elements: 10 20 30 40 50 

Example 2

Declare a vector without initialization, insert some elements and print.

To insert elements in vector, we use vector::push_back() – this is a predefined function, it insert/pushes the elements at the end of the vector.

#include <iostream>
#include <vector>

using namespace std;

int main() {
  // declare vector
  vector<int> num{};

  // insert elements
  num.push_back(100);
  num.push_back(200);
  num.push_back(300);
  num.push_back(400);
  num.push_back(500);

  // print the elements - to iterate the elements,
  // we need an iterator
  vector<int>::iterator it;

  // iterate and print the elements
  cout << "vector (num) elements: ";
  for (it = num.begin(); it != num.end(); it++) cout << *it << " ";

  return 0;
}

Output

vector (num) elements: 100 200 300 400 500