multimap::begin

Returns an iterator addressing the first element in the multimap.

const_iterator begin( ) const; 
iterator begin( );

Return Value

A bidirectional iterator addressing the first element in the multimap or the location succeeding an empty multimap.

Remark

If the return value of begin is assigned to a const_iterator, the elements in the multimap object cannot be modified. If the return value of begin is assigned to an iterator, the elements in the multimap object can be modified.

Example

// multimap_begin.cpp
// compile with: /EHsc
#include <map>
#include <iostream>

int main( )
{
   using namespace std;   
   multimap <int, int> m1;

   multimap <int, int> :: iterator m1_Iter;
   multimap <int, int> :: const_iterator m1_cIter;
   typedef pair <int, int> Int_Pair;

   m1.insert ( Int_Pair ( 0, 0 ) );
   m1.insert ( Int_Pair ( 1, 1 ) );
   m1.insert ( Int_Pair ( 2, 4 ) );

   m1_cIter = m1.begin ( );
   cout << "The first element of m1 is " << m1_cIter -> first << endl;
   
   m1_Iter = m1.begin ( );
   m1.erase ( m1_Iter );

   // The following 2 lines would err as the iterator is const
   // m1_cIter = m1.begin ( );
   // m1.erase ( m1_cIter );

   m1_cIter = m1.begin( );
   cout << "First element of m1 is now " << m1_cIter -> first << endl;
}

The first element of m1 is 0
First element of m1 is now 1

Requirements

Header: <map>

Namespace: std

See Also

Reference

multimap Class

Standard Template Library