Apparently ;-) the standard containers provide some form of guarantees.
What type of guarantees and what exactly are the differences between the different types of container?
Working from the SGI page (about STL) I have come up with this:
Container Types:
================
Container:
Forward Container
Reverse Container
Random Access Container
Sequence
Front Insert Sequence
Back Insert Sequence
Associative Container
Simple Associative Container
Pair Associative Container
Sorted Associative Container
Multiple Associative Container
Container Types mapped to Standard Containers
=============================================
std::vector: Sequence Back Sequence Forward/Reverse/Random Container
std::deque: Sequence Front/Back Sequence Forward/Reverse/Random Container
std::list: Sequence Front/Back Sequence Forward/Reverse Container
std::set: Sorted/Simple/Unique Associative Container Forward Container
std::map: Sorted/Pair/Unique Associative Container Forward Container
std::multiset: Sorted/Simple/Multiple Associative Container Forward Container
std::multimap: Sorted/Pair/Multiple Associative Container Forward Container
Container Guarantees:
=====================
Simp
or
For Rev Rand Front Back Assoc Sort Mult
Cont: Cont: Cont Cont: Sequ: Sequ: Sequ: Cont: Cont: Cont:
Copy Const: O(n)
Fill Const: O(n)
begin() O(1)
end() O(1)
rbegin() O(1)
rend() O(1)
front() O(1)
push_front() O(1)
pop_front() O(1)
push_back() O(1)
pop_back() O(1)
Insert() O(ln(n))
Insert: fill O(n)
Insert: range O(n) O(kln(n)+n)
size() O(n)
swap() O(1)
erase key O(ln(n))
erase element O(1)
erase range O(ln(n)+S)
count() O(log(n)+k)
find() O(ln(n))
equal range O(ln(n))
Lower Bound/Upper Bound O(ln(n))
Equality O(n)
InEquality O(n)
Element Access O(1)
I found the nice resource Standard C++ Containers. Probably this is what you all looking for.
VECTOR
Constructors
vector<T> v; Make an empty vector. O(1)
vector<T> v(n); Make a vector with N elements. O(n)
vector<T> v(n, value); Make a vector with N elements, initialized to value. O(n)
vector<T> v(begin, end); Make a vector and copy the elements from begin to end. O(n)
Accessors
v[i] Return (or set) the I'th element. O(1)
v.at(i) Return (or set) the I'th element, with bounds checking. O(1)
v.size() Return current number of elements. O(1)
v.empty() Return true if vector is empty. O(1)
v.begin() Return random access iterator to start. O(1)
v.end() Return random access iterator to end. O(1)
v.front() Return the first element. O(1)
v.back() Return the last element. O(1)
v.capacity() Return maximum number of elements. O(1)
Modifiers
v.push_back(value) Add value to end. O(1) (amortized)
v.insert(iterator, value) Insert value at the position indexed by iterator. O(n)
v.pop_back() Remove value from end. O(1)
v.assign(begin, end) Clear the container and copy in the elements from begin to end. O(n)
v.erase(iterator) Erase value indexed by iterator. O(n)
v.erase(begin, end) Erase the elements from begin to end. O(n)
For other containers, refer to the page.