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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 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 maped 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  Seuqence                    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 Garantees:
====================

                                                                                  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)
+4  A: 

Start here: STL Complexity Specifications. Then read through all the container types on that site, and look at the complexity requirements stated.

Hope this helps!

Chris Jester-Young
+2  A: 

I'm not aware of anything like a single table that lets you compare all of them in at one glance (I'm not sure such a table would even be feasible).

Of course the ISO standard document enumerates the complexity requirements in detail, sometimes in various rather readable tables, other times in less readable bullet points for each specific method.

Also the STL library reference at http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/stl/ provides the complexity requirements where appropriate.

Michael Burr