Question

I have a vector of IInventory*, and I am looping through the list using C++11 range for, to do stuff with each one.

After doing some stuff with one, I may want to remove it from the list and delete the object. I know I can call delete on the pointer any time to clean it up, but what is the proper way to remove it from the vector, while in the range for loop? And if I remove it from the list will my loop be invalidated?

std::vector<IInventory*> inv;
inv.push_back(new Foo());
inv.push_back(new Bar());

for (IInventory* index : inv)
{
    // Do some stuff
    // OK, I decided I need to remove this object from 'inv'...
}

Answer 1

No, you can’t. Range-based for is for when you need to access each element of a container once.

You should use the normal for loop or one of its cousins if you need to modify the container as you go along, access an element more than once, or otherwise iterate in a non-linear fashion through the container.

For example:

auto i = std::begin(inv);

while (i != std::end(inv)) {
    // Do some stuff
    if (blah)
        i = inv.erase(i);
    else
        ++i;
}