Finding all values for a key in multimap using equals_range – Example

Multimap store elements in key value pair. It can also have duplicate keys.

There can be many scenarios when we want to find all the values associated with a key in multimap.

For example, we have a multimap of char & int as key value pair and initialzed with following values i.e.

{'a', 1},
{'b', 2},
{'c', 3},
{'a', 4},
{'c', 5},
{'c', 6},
{'d', 7},

There are 3 pairs with duplicate key ‘c’. Values associated with key ‘c’ are 3,5 & 6. Now let’s see how to access all the values associated with a key in multimap.

std::multimap::equal_range

We can find all values of a key in Multimap using is member function equal_range().

pair<iterator,iterator>  equal_range (const key_type& k);;

It accepts the key as an argument and returns a pair of multimap iterator. This returned pair has a range that represents the entries with given key.

Let’s see an example,

#include <iostream>
#include <map>
#include <iterator>
#include <algorithm>

int main()
{
	//MultiMap of char and int
	std::multimap<char, int> mmapOfPos ={
		{'a', 1},
		{'b', 2},
		{'c', 3},
		{'a', 4},
		{'c', 5},
		{'c', 6},
		{'d', 7},
	};

	typedef std::multimap<char, int>::iterator MMAPIterator;

	// It returns a pair representing the range of elements with key equal to 'c'
	std::pair<MMAPIterator, MMAPIterator> result = mmapOfPos.equal_range('c');

	std::cout << "All values for key 'c' are," << std::endl;

	// Iterate over the range
	for (MMAPIterator it = result.first; it != result.second; it++)
		std::cout << it->second << std::endl;

	// Total Elements in the range
	int count = std::distance(result.first, result.second);
	std::cout << "Total values for key 'c' are : " << count << std::endl;

	return 0;
}

Output:

All values for key 'c' are,
3
5
6
Total values for key 'c' are : 3

To compile the above code in Linux use following command,

g++ –std=c++11 example.cpp

How to find if a key exists or not in multimap with equal_range()

As equal_range() returns a range representing all the elements with given key. So, to check if a key exists or not, we will calculate the total number of elements in given range of iterators. It can be done using std::distance() algorithm i.e.

// Total Elements in the range
int count = std::distance(result.first, result.second);

If the count is 0 i.e. no elements in range thenit means key don’t exists in multimap.

Checkout the example as follows,

#include <iostream>
#include <map>
#include <iterator>
#include <algorithm>

int main()
{
	//MultiMap of char and int
	std::multimap<char, int> mmapOfPos ={
		{'a', 1},
		{'b', 2},
		{'c', 3},
		{'a', 4},
		{'c', 5},
		{'c', 6},
		{'d', 7},
	};

	typedef std::multimap<char, int>::iterator MMAPIterator;

	// It returns a pair representing the range of elements with key equal to 'f'
	std::pair<MMAPIterator, MMAPIterator> result = mmapOfPos.equal_range('f');

	// Total Elements in the range
	int count = std::distance(result.first, result.second);

	std::cout << "Total values for key 'f' are : " << count << std::endl;

	if(count == 0)
		std::cout<<"key 'f' don't exist in multimap"<<std::endl;
	return 0;
}

 

Output:

Total values for key 'f' are : 0
key 'f' dont exist

To compile the above code in Linux use following command,

g++ –std=c++11 example.cpp