Erase/Remove contents from the map (or any other STL container) while iterating it

Question

You can as long as you don't invalidate your iterator after you've erased it:

MyContainer::iterator it = myContainer.begin();
while(it != myContainer.end())
{
    if (*it == matchingValue)
    {
       myContainer.erase(it++);
    }
    else
    {
        ++it;
    }
}

Example with std::vector

#include <vector>

using namespace std;

int main()
{

   typedef vector <int> int_vector;

   int_vector v(10);

   // Fill as: 0,1,2,0,1,2 etc
   for (size_t i = 0; i < v.size(); ++i){
      v[i] = i % 3;
   }

   // Remove every element where value == 1    
   for (int_vector::iterator it = v.begin(); it != v.end(); /* BLANK */){
      if (*it == 1){
         it = v.erase(it);
      } else {
         ++it;
      }
   }

}

bool IsOdd( int i )
{
    return (i&1)!=0;
}

int a[] = {1,2,3,4,5};
vector<int> v( a, a + 5 );
v.erase( remove_if( v.begin(), v.end(), bind1st( equal_to<int>(), 4 ) ), v.end() );
// v contains {1,2,3,5}
v.erase( remove_if( v.begin(), v.end(), IsOdd ), v.end() );
// v contains {2}

Viktor's solution has the upside of being able to do something with the element before removing. (I wasn't able to do this with remove_if or remove_copy_if.) But I prefer to use std::find_if so I never have to increment the iterator myself:

typedef vector<int> int_vector;
int_vector v;

int_vector::iterator itr = v.begin();
for(;;)
{
    itr = std::find_if(itr, v.end(), Predicate(4));
    if (itr == v.end())
    {
        break;
    }

    // do stuff with *itr here

    itr = v.erase(itr);  // grab a new, valid iterator
}

Where Predicate could be bind1st( equal_to<int>(), 4 ) or something like this:

struct Predicate : public unary_function<int, bool>
{
    int mExpected;
    Predicate(int desired) : mExpected(desired) {}
    bool operator() (int input)
    {
        return ( input == mExpected );
    }
};

I prefer version with while:

typedef std::list<some_class_t> list_t;
void f( void ) {
  // Remove items from list
  list_t::iterator it = sample_list.begin();
  while ( it != sample_list.end() ) {
    if ( it->condition == true ) {
      it = sample_list.erase( it );
    } else ++it;    
  }
}

With while there is no danger to increment it twice as it could be in for loop.

1.For std::vector<> :

std::vector <int> vec;
vec.erase(std::remove(vec.begin(),vec.end(), elem_to_remove), vec.end());

2.For std::map<> always use std::map::erase()

std::map<int,std::string> myMap;
myMap.emplace(std::make_pair(1, "Hello"));
myMap.emplace(std::make_pair(2, "Hi"));
myMap.emplace(std::make_pair(3, "How"));
myMap.erase( 1);//Erase with key
myMap.erase(myMap.begin(), ++myMap.begin() );//Erase with range
for( auto &ele: myMap)
{
    if(ele.first ==1)
    {
        myMap.erase(ele.first);//erase by key 
        break; //You can't use ele again properly 
               //wthin this iteration, so break.
    }
}

3. For std::list use std::list::erase()