std::min_element

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Defined in header <algorithm>

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template< class ForwardIterator >
ForwardIterator min_element( ForwardIterator first, ForwardIterator last );

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template< class ForwardIterator, class Compare >

ForwardIterator min_element( ForwardIterator first, ForwardIterator last,

                             Compare comp );

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Finds the smallest element in the range [first, last). The first version uses operator< to compare the values, the second version uses the given comparison function comp.

Parameters

first, last	-	forward iterators defining the range to examine
cmp	-	comparison function object (i.e. an object that satisfies the requirements of Compare) which returns true if if *a is less than *b. The signature of the comparison function should be equivalent to the following: bool cmp(const Type1& a, const Type2& b); While the signature does not need to have const&, the function must not modify the objects passed to it and must be able to accept all values of type (possibly const) Type1 and Type2 regardless of value category (thus, Type1& is not allowed, nor is Type1 unless for Type1 a move is equivalent to a copy(since C++11)). The types Type1 and Type2 must be such that an object of type ForwardIterator can be dereferenced and then implicitly converted to both of them.

Return value

Iterator to the smallest element in the range [first, last). If several elements in the range are equivalent to the smallest element, returns the iterator to the first such element. Returns last if the range is empty.

Complexity

Exactly max(N-1,0) comparisons, where N = std::distance(first, last).

Example

Run this code

#include <algorithm>
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
 
int main()
{
    std::vector<int> v{3, 1, 4, 1, 5, 9};
 
    std::vector<int>::iterator result = std::min_element(v.begin(), v.end());
    std::cout << "min element at: " << std::distance(v.begin(), result);
}

Output:

min element at: 1

See also

Template:cpp/algorithm/dcl list max elementTemplate:cpp/algorithm/dcl list minmax elementTemplate:cpp/algorithm/dcl list min