Question

I have a std::multiset which stores elements of class A. I have provided my own implementation of operator< for this class. My question is if I insert two equivalent objects into this multiset is their order guaranteed? For example, first I insert a object a1 into the set and then I insert an equivalent object a2 into this set. Can I expect the a1 to come before a2 when I iterate through the set? If no, is there any way to achieve this using multiset?

Answer 1

In C++03 you are not guaranteed that insert and erase preserve relative ordering. However, this is changed in C++0x:

n3092, §23.2.4/4: An associative container supports unique keys if it may contain at most one element for each key. Otherwise, it supports equivalent keys. The set and map classes support unique keys; the multiset and multimap classes support equivalent keys. For multiset and multimap, insert and erase preserve the relative ordering of equivalent elements. _{Emphasis mine.}

This is discussed in this defect report. This page is the collection of comments on the issue, it’s well-written and quite fleshed-out. (I very much recommend reading this one over the previous “overview” link.)

From that comment page you’ll find a comparison of current implementations, so you can check if the implementations you intend to use follow what you expect.

I can’t think of a way to force the ordering you want off the top of my head. :/