C++ map lower_bound/upper_bound

Question

I understand that the underlying data structure for map in C++ is a self-balancing Binary Search Tree. Since in these data structures, finding a lower bound and an upper bound to a key has lots of use, you'd think that map lower_bound, and upper_bound functions will give you that capability. It's a bummer that these functions don't deliver that. Does anyone know why lower_bound behaves the way it does? (it gives you the key that is NOT BEFORE the given key).

Answer 1

I've been using C++ since before SGI even introduced the STL, and for some reason still manage to mess up using these methods, including even embarrassing myself when presenting them to a class. I think my problems are that:

1. The names already have an intuitive but different meaning in mathematics. Given the mathematical meanings, it seems weird that in a big set or map, upper_bound and lower_bound are actually the same or adjacent elements.

2. The names "upper_bound" and "lower_bound" sound like there is a some kind of symmetry between the two, when there is absolutely not. I'd have a much easier time if the names were something like least_ge (least greater than or equal to) for lower_bound and least_gt (least greater than) for upper_bound.

If someone has a mnemonic or logic to make these easy to internalize, please share it. Otherwise, it just feels like they wrote two useful functions but used two random mathematical terms to name those functions, with no way to derive the semantics from the names. At that point, why not use up made up names like egptr and pbase? I mean at least I don't have any pre-existing intuitions to overcome about the names of streambuf methods...

At any rate here are what I believe are the basic rules you have to remember:

• lower_bound(X) returns the lowest element v such that v >= X

• upper_bound(X) returns the lowest element v such that v > X

• To traverse the half-open interval [L,H), start with lower_bound(L) and stop at (don't process) lower_bound(H). This is usually what you want, because it's most common to traverse half-open intervals in C++--e.g., [buf, buf+nbytes), or [0,array_size), or [begin(), end()).

• To traverse the closed interval [L,H], start at lower_bound(L) and stop at upper_bound(H).

• To traverse the open interval (L,H), start at upper_bound(L) and stop at lower_bound(H).

• In a non-empty container, the mirror image of lower_bound(X) is std::prev(upper_bound(X)) and the mirror image of upper_bound(X) is std::prev(lower_bound(X)). Of course, if an element is equal to begin(), then you can't step it backwards with std::prev, so you need extra logic to deal with the fact that this point cannot be represented with an iterator value.

• In a multiset/multimap, the first v is lower_bound(v) if that element is indeed v. The last v is std::prev(upper_bound(v)) if the container is not empty and that element is v, but remember to check that the container is not empty before attempting prev on end().