std::lexicographical_compare

 

C++

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Technical Specifications

 

Algorithm library

Execution policies (C++17)
is_execution_policy	sequentialparpar_vec	sequential_execution_policyparallel_execution_policyparallel_vector_execution_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 lexicographical_compare	findfind_iffind_if_not (C++11) find_end find_first_of	adjacent_find search search_n
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_copy_n	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
Heap operations
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)
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>
template< class InputIt1, class InputIt2 > bool lexicographical_compare( InputIt1 first1, InputIt1 last1,                               InputIt2 first2, InputIt2 last2 );	(1)
template< class ExecutionPolicy, class InputIt1, class InputIt2 > bool lexicographical_compare( ExecutionPolicy&& policy, InputIt1 first1, InputIt1 last1,                               InputIt2 first2, InputIt2 last2 );	(2)	(since C++17)
template< class InputIt1, class InputIt2, class Compare > bool lexicographical_compare( InputIt1 first1, InputIt1 last1,                               InputIt2 first2, InputIt2 last2,                               Compare comp );	(3)
template< class ExecutionPolicy, class InputIt1, class InputIt2, class Compare > bool lexicographical_compare( ExecutionPolicy&& policy, InputIt1 first1, InputIt1 last1,                               InputIt2 first2, InputIt2 last2,                               Compare comp );	(4)	(since C++17)

Checks if the first range [first1, last1) is lexicographically less than the second range [first2, last2).

1) Elements are compared using operator<.

3) Elements are compared using the given binary comparison function comp.

2,4) Same as (1,3), but executed according to policy. These overloads do not participate in overload resolution unless std::is_execution_policy_v<std::decay_t<ExecutionPolicy>> is true

Lexicographical comparison is a operation with the following properties:

• Two ranges are compared element by element.
• The first mismatching element defines which range is lexicographically less or greater than the other.
• If one range is a prefix of another, the shorter range is lexicographically less than the other.
• If two ranges have equivalent elements and are of the same length, then the ranges are lexicographically equal.
• An empty range is lexicographically less than any non-empty range.
• Two empty ranges are lexicographically equal.

Parameters

first1, last1	-	the first range of elements to examine
first2, last2	-	the second range of elements to examine
policy	-	the execution policy to use. See execution policy for details.
comp	-	comparison function object (i.e. an object that satisfies the requirements of Compare) which returns ​true if the first argument is less than the second. The signature of the comparison function should be equivalent to the following:  bool cmp(const Type1 &a, const Type2 &b); The signature does not need to have const &, but the function object must not modify the objects passed to it. The types Type1 and Type2 must be such that objects of types InputIt1 and InputIt2 can be dereferenced and then implicitly converted to both Type1 and Type2. ​
Type requirements
- InputIt1, InputIt2 must meet the requirements of InputIterator.

Return value

true if the first range is lexicographically less than the second.

Complexity

At most 2·min(N1, N2) applications of the comparison operation, where N1 = std::distance(first1, last1) and N2 = std::distance(first2, last2).

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,

• if policy is std::parallel_vector_execution_policy, std::terminate is called
• if policy is std::sequential_execution_policy or std::parallel_execution_policy, the algorithm exits with an std::exception_list containing all uncaught exceptions. If there was only one uncaught exception, the algorithm may rethrow it without wrapping in std::exception_list. It is unspecified how much work the algorithm will perform before returning after the first exception was encountered.
• if policy is some other type, the behavior is implementation-defined

• If the algorithm fails to allocate memory (either for itself or to construct an std::exception_list when handling a user exception), std::bad_alloc is thrown.

Possible implementation

First version
template<class InputIt1, class InputIt2> bool lexicographical_compare(InputIt1 first1, InputIt1 last1, InputIt2 first2, InputIt2 last2) { for ( ; (first1 != last1) && (first2 != last2); first1++, (void) first2++ ) { if (*first1 < *first2) return true; if (*first2 < *first1) return false; } return (first1 == last1) && (first2 != last2); }
Second version
template<class InputIt1, class InputIt2, class Compare> bool lexicographical_compare(InputIt1 first1, InputIt1 last1, InputIt2 first2, InputIt2 last2, Compare comp) { for ( ; (first1 != last1) && (first2 != last2); first1++, (void) first2++ ) { if (comp(*first1, *first2)) return true; if (comp(*first2, *first1)) return false; } return (first1 == last1) && (first2 != last2); }

Example

Run this code

#include <algorithm>
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
#include <cstdlib>
#include <ctime>
 
int main()
{
    std::vector<char> v1 {'a', 'b', 'c', 'd'};
    std::vector<char> v2 {'a', 'b', 'c', 'd'};
 
    std::srand(std::time(0));
    while (!std::lexicographical_compare(v1.begin(), v1.end(),
                                         v2.begin(), v2.end())) {
        for (auto c : v1) std::cout << c << ' ';
        std::cout << ">= ";
        for (auto c : v2) std::cout << c << ' ';
        std::cout << '\n';
 
        std::random_shuffle(v1.begin(), v1.end());
        std::random_shuffle(v2.begin(), v2.end());
    }
 
    for (auto c : v1) std::cout << c << ' ';
    std::cout << "< ";
    for (auto c : v2) std::cout << c << ' ';
    std::cout << '\n';
}

Possible output:

a b c d >= a b c d 
d a b c >= c b d a 
b d a c >= a d c b 
a c d b < c d a b

See also

equal	determines if two sets of elements are the same (function template)
std::experimental::parallel::lexicographical_compare (parallelism TS)	parallelized version of std::lexicographical_compare (function template)