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### 354. Associative container lower/upper bound requirements

Section: 24.2.7 [associative.reqmts] Status: CD1 Submitter: Hans Aberg Opened: 2001-12-17 Last modified: 2016-01-28

Priority: Not Prioritized

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Discussion:

Discussions in the thread "Associative container lower/upper bound requirements" on comp.std.c++ suggests that there is a defect in the C++ standard, Table 69 of section 23.1.2, "Associative containers", [lib.associative.reqmts]. It currently says:

> a.find(k): returns an iterator pointing to an element with the key equivalent to k, or a.end() if such an element is not found.

> a.lower_bound(k): returns an iterator pointing to the first element with key not less than k.

> a.upper_bound(k): returns an iterator pointing to the first element with key greater than k.

We have "or a.end() if such an element is not found" for `find`, but not for `upper_bound` or `lower_bound`. As the text stands, one would be forced to insert a new element into the container and return an iterator to that in case the sought iterator does not exist, which does not seem to be the intention (and not possible with the "const" versions).

Proposed resolution:

Change Table 69 of section 24.2.7 [associative.reqmts] indicated entries to:

> a.lower_bound(k): returns an iterator pointing to the first element with key not less than k, or a.end() if such an element is not found.

> a.upper_bound(k): returns an iterator pointing to the first element with key greater than k, or a.end() if such an element is not found.

[Curaçao: LWG reviewed PR.]