Vector is a quite useful sequence container, and it works exactly as an array, except that the vector can grow and shrink at runtime while an array is of a fixed size. However, the data structure used under the hood in an array and vector is a plain simple built-in C/C++ style array.
Let's look at the following example to understand vectors better:
#include <iostream> #include <vector> #include <algorithm> using namespace std;
int main () { vector<int> v = { 1, 5, 2, 4, 3 };
cout << "\nSize of vector is " << v.size() << endl;
auto pos = v.begin();
cout << "\nPrint vector elements before sorting" << endl; while ( pos != v.end() ) cout << *pos++ << "\t"; cout << endl;
sort( v.begin(), v.end() );
pos = v.begin();
cout << "\nPrint vector elements after sorting" << endl;