Question

hi i’m doing a program that needs high performance of handling vector elements

vector<Class_A> object ;

1- which one is fastest to access the elements
2- which is more code simpler and not complex to deal with

index ? iterator ? pointer ?

Answer 1

An iterator or pointer will have the same performance on most implementations — usually a vector iterator is a pointer. An index needs to calculate a pointer each time, but the optimizer can sometimes take care of that. Generally though, as another commenter said, there’s no sense in optimizing this for performance.

All of that said, I would probably go with an iterator since it’s easier to change to another type of container if need be.