On Mon, Mar 24, 2003 at 11:46:50AM +0100, Alfredo Braunstein wrote: > >> Who's talking about pointers? The standard doesn't, am I right? > > > > Oh, it does. But not necessarily in connection with iterators ;-) > > The original point in question was if the iterator rend() points to the > start or one-before-start of the container. > > What's the/your definition of the word 'points' for an interator in this > frase? I've always assumed that "pa points to a, and *pa is allowed" iff > "*pa gives a".
I do the same. But using this definition it is hard to distinguish between a pointer (as in "something that point to something") and a pointer (as defined by the Standard). But these is the price for sloppiness I suppose. > But you have a different definition it seems, you say that rend() points to > the first element of the container. What's yours/the right one? A reverse_iterator is a wrapper around an iterator (accessible by calling rit.base()). In case of rend() the "embedded" iterator is build from begin(), not begin() - 1. "build from" means in all implementations I am aware of "is a copy of". As the iterator usually is a pointer (notice my own sloppiness again), I felt like saying "rend() is a pointer to the first element". The -1 is added only when dereferencing the reverse_iterator, nowhere else. Andre' -- Those who desire to give up Freedom in order to gain Security, will not have, nor do they deserve, either one. (T. Jefferson)
