Question

I have a problem with the STL list class. I have a base class called Contact, and three derived classes, Friend, Colleague and Acquaintance. Each instance of the derived classes has certain fields which I modify in the fill*Class*Details() function. The problem is that when it reaches the push_back line, my program gives me an error saying list insert iterator outside range. What can that be from?

void Agenda::pushContact(string line, string temp)//function that adds a contact of type temp, containing the fields from line to the list
{       
    Contact *c;

    if(temp=="friend") //the contact to add is of type friend
    {
        c = new Friend();
        fillFriendDetails(c,line);//the details of Friend c will be filled
    }
    else if(temp=="colleague")
    {
        c = new Colleague();
        fillColleagueDetails(c,line);//the details of Colleague c will be filled
    }
    else if(temp=="acquaintance")
    {
        c = new Acquaintance();
        fillAcquaintanceDetails(c,line);//the details of Acquaintance c will be filled
    }
    contactList.push_back(c);
}

Also, the contactList is defined as list <Contact*> contactList;.

Edit: This is how the Contact class (+derived classes) are defined:

class Contact
{
public:
    string getFullName() {  string fullName;fullName.append(firstName); fullName.append(" ");fullName.append(lastName); return fullName;}
public:
    void setFullName(string newFirstName, string newLastName) { firstName = newFirstName; lastName = newLastName;}
public:
    string getFirstName() { return firstName;}
public:
    void setFirstName(string newFirstName) {firstName = newFirstName;}
public:
    string getLastName(){return lastName;}
public:
    void setLastName(string newLastName){lastName = newLastName;}
public:
    string getPhoneNo(){return phoneNo;}
public:
    void setPhoneNo(string newPhoneNo) {phoneNo = newPhoneNo;}
public:
    void setType(string newType){type=newType;}
public:
    string getType(){return type;}
private:
    string firstName;
    string lastName;
    string phoneNo;
    string type;

//SubClass setters and getters
public:
    virtual void setDateOfBirth(string birth) {}
    virtual string getDateOfBirth() {return 0;}
    virtual void setCity (string newCity) {}
    virtual string getCity() {return 0;}
    virtual void setFaculty (string newFaculty) {}
    virtual string getFaculty() {return 0;}
    virtual void setGroup (string newGroup) {}
    virtual string getGroup() {return 0;}
    virtual void setJob (string newJob) {}
    virtual string getJob () {return 0;}


};


class Friend : public Contact
{
public:
    void setDateOfBirth(string birth)   {dateOfBirth=birth;}
public:
    string getDateOfBirth() {return dateOfBirth;}
public:
    void setCity (string newCity){city=newCity;}
public:
    string getCity(){return city;}

private:
    string dateOfBirth;
    string city;    //current city of residence
};

class Colleague : public Contact
{
public:
    void setFaculty (string newFaculty){faculty = newFaculty;}
public:
    string getFaculty(){return faculty;}
public:
    void setGroup (string newGroup){group = newGroup;}
public:
    string getGroup(){return group;}


private:
    string faculty;
    string group;
};

class Acquaintance : public Contact
{
public:
    void setJob (string newJob){job=newJob;}
public:
    string getJob (){return job;}

private:
    string job;

};

Answer 1

It looks like the list is being mismanaged at a different point in the code, because the error implies end is incorrect. Most likely either the list is deleted/out of scope or some incorrect erases were performed on the list elements (say using invalid iterators).