std::search

 

C++

Language

Standard library headers

Concepts

Utilities library

Strings library

Containers library

Algorithms library

Iterators library

Numerics library

Input/output library

Localizations library

Regular expressions library (C++11)

Atomic operations library (C++11)

Thread support library (C++11)

Technical Specifications

 

Algorithm library

Functions
Non-modifying sequence operations
all_ofany_ofnone_of (C++11)(C++11)(C++11) for_each countcount_if mismatch equal	findfind_iffind_if_not (C++11) find_end find_first_of adjacent_find search search_n
Modifying sequence operations
copycopy_if (C++11) copy_n (C++11) copy_backward move (C++11) move_backward (C++11) fill fill_n transform generate generate_n removeremove_if remove_copyremove_copy_if	replacereplace_if replace_copyreplace_copy_if swap swap_ranges iter_swap reverse reverse_copy rotate rotate_copy random_shuffleshuffle (until C++17)(C++11) unique unique_copy
Partitioning operations
is_partitioned (C++11) partition partition_copy (C++11)	stable_partition partition_point (C++11)
Sorting operations (on sorted ranges)
is_sorted (C++11) is_sorted_until (C++11) sort	partial_sort partial_sort_copy stable_sort nth_element
Binary search operations (on sorted ranges)
lower_bound upper_bound	binary_search equal_range
Set operations (on sorted ranges)
merge inplace_merge includes	set_difference set_intersection set_symmetric_difference set_union
Heap operations
is_heap (C++11) is_heap_until (C++11) make_heap	push_heap pop_heap sort_heap
Minimum/maximum operations
max max_element min min_element minmax (C++11) minmax_element (C++11)	lexicographical_compare is_permutation (C++11) next_permutation prev_permutation
Numeric operations
iota (C++11) accumulate inner_product	adjacent_difference partial_sum
C library
qsort	bsearch

 

Defined in header <algorithm>
template< class ForwardIt1, class ForwardIt2 > ForwardIt1 search( ForwardIt1 first, ForwardIt1 last,                    ForwardIt2 s_first, ForwardIt2 s_last );	(1)
template< class ForwardIt1, class ForwardIt2, class BinaryPredicate > ForwardIt1 search( ForwardIt1 first, ForwardIt1 last,                    ForwardIt2 s_first, ForwardIt2 s_last, BinaryPredicate p );	(2)

Searches for the first occurrence of the subsequence of elements [s_first, s_last) in the range [first, last - (s_last - s_first)). The first version uses operator== to compare the elements, the second version uses the given binary predicate p.

Parameters

first, last	-	the range of elements to examine
s_first, s_last	-	the range of elements to search for
p	-	binary predicate which returns ​true if the elements should be treated as equal. The signature of the predicate function should be equivalent to the following:  bool pred(const Type1 &a, const Type2 &b); The signature does not need to have const &, but the function must not modify the objects passed to it. The types Type1 and Type2 must be such that objects of types ForwardIt1 and ForwardIt2 can be dereferenced and then implicitly converted to Type1 and Type2 respectively. ​
Type requirements
- ForwardIt1, ForwardIt2 must meet the requirements of ForwardIterator.

Return value

Iterator to the beginning of first subsequence [s_first, s_last) in the range [first, last - (s_last - s_first)). If no such subsequence is found, last is returned.
If [s_first, s_last) is empty, first is returned. (since C++11)

Complexity

At most S*N comparisons where S = std::distance(s_first, s_last) and N = std::distance(first, last).

Possible implementation

First version
template<class ForwardIt1, class ForwardIt2> ForwardIt1 search(ForwardIt1 first, ForwardIt1 last, ForwardIt2 s_first, ForwardIt2 s_last) { for (; ; ++first) { ForwardIt1 it = first; for (ForwardIt2 s_it = s_first; ; ++it, ++s_it) { if (s_it == s_last) { return first; } if (it == last) { return last; } if (!(*it == *s_it)) { break; } } } }
Second version
template<class ForwardIt1, class ForwardIt2, class BinaryPredicate> ForwardIt1 search(ForwardIt1 first, ForwardIt1 last, ForwardIt2 s_first, ForwardIt2 s_last, BinaryPredicate p) { for (; ; ++first) { ForwardIt1 it = first; for (ForwardIt2 s_it = s_first; ; ++it, ++s_it) { if (s_it == s_last) { return first; } if (it == last) { return last; } if (!p(*it, *s_it)) { break; } } } }

Example

Run this code

#include <string>
#include <algorithm>
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
 
template<typename Container>
bool in_quote(const Container& cont, const std::string& s)
{
    return std::search(cont.begin(), cont.end(), s.begin(), s.end()) != cont.end();
}
 
int main()
{
    std::string str = "why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?";
    // str.find() can be used as well
    std::cout << std::boolalpha << in_quote(str, "learning") << '\n'
                                << in_quote(str, "lemming")  << '\n';
 
    std::vector<char> vec(str.begin(), str.end());
    std::cout << std::boolalpha << in_quote(vec, "learning") << '\n'
                                << in_quote(vec, "lemming")  << '\n';
}

Output:

true
false
true
false

See also

find_end	finds the last sequence of elements in a certain range (function template)
includes	returns true if one set is a subset of another (function template)
equal	determines if two sets of elements are the same (function template)
findfind_iffind_if_not (C++11)	finds the first element satisfying specific criteria (function template)
lexicographical_compare	returns true if one range is lexicographically less than another (function template)
mismatch	finds the first position where two ranges differ (function template)
search_n	searches for a number consecutive copies of an element in a range (function template)
std::experimental::search (library fundamentals TS)	applies a searcher to a sequence (function template)
std::experimental::parallel::search (parallelism TS)	parallelized version of std::search (function template)