Does `std::set` sort elements in every case? [duplicate]

Question

From cplusplus.com reference it seems that std::set sorts elements.

I need to have sorted strings, but I'm not sure if it will work well on every platform and compiler. Mainly GCC, MinGW, VC.

Answer 1

By its definition std::set is a sorted container. Its part of the standard. Having it sorted helps maintain that its a set rather than just an arbitrary collection.

Source: http://www.sgi.com/tech/stl/set.html

Answer 2

Actualy std::set and std::map are not really sorted. Both of these containers are implemented as a red-black trees. So when you iterate such kind of containers, iterator walks through the tree in such way that it looks like that container is sorted. At first it visits the most left node then the parent of the most left one and so on...