std::copy, std::copy_if

 

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Technical Specifications

 

Algorithm library

Execution policies (C++17)
is_execution_policy	execution::seqexecution::parexecution::par_unseq	execution::sequenced_policyexecution::parallel_policyexecution::parallel_unsequenced_policy
Non-modifying sequence operations
all_ofany_ofnone_of (C++11)(C++11)(C++11) for_each for_each_n (C++17)	countcount_if mismatch equal adjacent_find	findfind_iffind_if_not (C++11) find_end find_first_of	search search_n lexicographical_compare lexicographical_compare_3way (C++20)
Modifying sequence operations
copycopy_if (C++11) copy_n (C++11) copy_backward move (C++11) move_backward (C++11) transform	fill fill_n generate generate_n swap iter_swap swap_ranges sample (C++17)	removeremove_if replacereplace_if reverse rotate unique random_shuffle (until C++17)	remove_copyremove_copy_if replace_copyreplace_copy_if reverse_copy rotate_copy unique_copy shuffle (C++11)
Operations on uninitialized storage
uninitialized_copy uninitialized_move (C++17)	uninitialized_copy_n (C++11) uninitialized_move_n (C++17)	uninitialized_fill	uninitialized_fill_n
Partitioning operations
is_partitioned (C++11) partition_point (C++11)	partition partition_copy (C++11)	stable_partition
Sorting operations
is_sorted (C++11) is_sorted_until (C++11)	sort stable_sort	partial_sort partial_sort_copy	nth_element
Binary search operations
lower_bound	upper_bound	binary_search	equal_range
Set operations (on sorted ranges)
merge inplace_merge	set_difference set_intersection	set_symmetric_difference set_union	includes
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is_heap (C++11) is_heap_until (C++11)	make_heap sort_heap	push_heap pop_heap
Minimum/maximum operations
max max_element	min min_element	minmax (C++11) minmax_element (C++11)	clamp (C++17) compare_3way (C++20)
Permutations
is_permutation (C++11)	next_permutation	prev_permutation
Numeric operations
iota (C++11) inner_product adjacent_difference	accumulate reduce (C++17) transform_reduce (C++17)	partial_sum inclusive_scan (C++17) exclusive_scan (C++17)	transform_inclusive_scan (C++17) transform_exclusive_scan (C++17)
C library
qsort	bsearch

 

Defined in header <algorithm>
	(1)
template< class InputIt, class OutputIt > OutputIt copy( InputIt first, InputIt last, OutputIt d_first );			(until C++20)
template< class InputIt, class OutputIt > constexpr OutputIt copy( InputIt first, InputIt last, OutputIt d_first );			(since C++20)
template< class ExecutionPolicy, class ForwardIt1, class ForwardIt2 > ForwardIt2 copy( ExecutionPolicy&& policy, ForwardIt1 first, ForwardIt1 last, ForwardIt2 d_first );		(2)	(since C++17)
		(3)
template< class InputIt, class OutputIt, class UnaryPredicate > OutputIt copy_if( InputIt first, InputIt last,                   OutputIt d_first,                   UnaryPredicate pred );				(since C++11) (until C++20)
template< class InputIt, class OutputIt, class UnaryPredicate > constexpr OutputIt copy_if( InputIt first, InputIt last,                             OutputIt d_first,                             UnaryPredicate pred );				(since C++20)
template< class ExecutionPolicy, class ForwardIt1, class ForwardIt2, class UnaryPredicate > ForwardIt2 copy_if( ExecutionPolicy&& policy, ForwardIt1 first, ForwardIt1 last,                   ForwardIt2 d_first,                   UnaryPredicate pred );			(4)	(since C++17)

Copies the elements in the range, defined by [first, last), to another range beginning at d_first.

1) Copies all elements in the range [first, last). The behavior is undefined if d_first is within the range [first, last). In this case, std::copy_backward may be used instead.

3) Only copies the elements for which the predicate pred returns true. The relative order of the elements that are copied is preserved. The behavior is undefined if the source and the destination ranges overlap.

2,4) Same as (1,3), but executed according to policy. This overload only participates in overload resolution if std::is_execution_policy_v<std::decay_t<ExecutionPolicy>> is true

Parameters

first, last	-	the range of elements to copy
d_first	-	the beginning of the destination range.
policy	-	the execution policy to use. See execution policy for details.
pred	-	unary predicate which returns ​true for the required elements. The signature of the predicate function should be equivalent to the following:  bool pred(const Type &a); The signature does not need to have const &, but the function must not modify the objects passed to it. The type Type must be such that an object of type InputIt can be dereferenced and then implicitly converted to Type. ​
Type requirements
- InputIt must meet the requirements of InputIterator.
- OutputIt must meet the requirements of OutputIterator.
- ForwardIt1, ForwardIt2 must meet the requirements of ForwardIterator.
- UnaryPredicate must meet the requirements of Predicate.

Return value

Output iterator to the element in the destination range, one past the last element copied.

Complexity

• 1-2) Exactly (last - first) assignments

• 3-4) Exactly (last - first) applications of the predicate, between ​0​ and (last - first) assignments (assignment for every element for which predicate is equal to true, dependent on predicate and input data)

For the overloads with an ExecutionPolicy, there may be a performance cost if ForwardIt1's value_type is not MoveConstructible.

Exceptions

The overloads with a template parameter named ExecutionPolicy report errors as follows:

• If execution of a function invoked as part of the algorithm throws an exception and ExecutionPolicy is one of the three standard policies, std::terminate is called. For any other ExecutionPolicy, the behavior is implementation-defined.
• If the algorithm fails to allocate memory, std::bad_alloc is thrown.

Notes

In practice, implementations of std::copy avoid multiple assignments and use bulk copy functions such as std::memmove if the value type is TriviallyCopyable

When copying overlapping ranges, std::copy is appropriate when copying to the left (beginning of the destination range is outside the source range) while std::copy_backward is appropriate when copying to the right (end of the destination range is outside the source range).

Possible implementation

First version
template<class InputIt, class OutputIt> OutputIt copy(InputIt first, InputIt last, OutputIt d_first) { while (first != last) { *d_first++ = *first++; } return d_first; }
Second version
template<class InputIt, class OutputIt, class UnaryPredicate> OutputIt copy_if(InputIt first, InputIt last, OutputIt d_first, UnaryPredicate pred) { while (first != last) { if (pred(*first)) *d_first++ = *first; first++; } return d_first; }

Example

The following code uses copy to both copy the contents of one vector to another and to display the resulting vector:

Run this code

#include <algorithm>
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
#include <iterator>
#include <numeric>
 
int main()
{
    std::vector<int> from_vector(10);
    std::iota(from_vector.begin(), from_vector.end(), 0);
 
    std::vector<int> to_vector;
    std::copy(from_vector.begin(), from_vector.end(),
              std::back_inserter(to_vector));
// or, alternatively,
//  std::vector<int> to_vector(from_vector.size());
//  std::copy(from_vector.begin(), from_vector.end(), to_vector.begin());
// either way is equivalent to
//  std::vector<int> to_vector = from_vector;
 
    std::cout << "to_vector contains: ";
 
    std::copy(to_vector.begin(), to_vector.end(),
              std::ostream_iterator<int>(std::cout, " "));
    std::cout << '\n';
}

Output:

to_vector contains: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

See also

copy_backward	copies a range of elements in backwards order (function template)
reverse_copy	creates a copy of a range that is reversed (function template)
copy_n (C++11)	copies a number of elements to a new location (function template)
fill	copy-assigns the given value to every element in a range (function template)
remove_copyremove_copy_if	copies a range of elements omitting those that satisfy specific criteria (function template)