Are C++ iterators "safe"?

Question

I have read the documentation for C++ list iterators, but couldn't figure out one thing: are C++ iterators "safe"? I mean, does it stop incrementing once it reaches the last existing element in a list?

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Answer 1

No, they're not "safe" in that sense. It is possible to increment an iterator past the end. For all the iterators in the standard library doing this will result in undefined behaviour. You could define your own iterators that do behave in a safe way instead if you wanted to.