std:: nth_element

nth_element rearranges elements in [ first , last ) such that after the rearrangement:

• The element pointed at by nth is changed to whatever element would occur in that position if [ first , last ) were sorted.
• For every iterator i in [ first , nth ) and every iterator j in [ nth , last ) , the following condition is met:

If any of the following conditions is satisfied, the behavior is undefined:

• [ first , nth ) or [ nth , last ) is not a valid range .

Parameters

Complexity

Given \(\scriptsize N\) N as last - first :

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 and ExecutionPolicy is one of the standard policies , std::terminate is called. For any other ExecutionPolicy , the behavior is implementation-defined.
• If the algorithm fails to allocate memory, std::bad_alloc is thrown.

Possible implementation

See also the implementations in libstdc++ , libc++ , and MSVC STL .

Notes

The algorithm used is typically Introselect although other Selection algorithm with suitable average-case complexity are allowed.

Example

#include <algorithm>
#include <cassert>
#include <functional>
#include <iostream>
#include <numeric>
#include <vector>
 
void printVec(const std::vector<int>& vec)
{
    std::cout << "v = {";
    for (char sep[]{0, ' ', 0}; const int i : vec)
        std::cout << sep << i, sep[0] = ',';
    std::cout << "};\n";
}
 
int main()
{
    std::vector<int> v{5, 10, 6, 4, 3, 2, 6, 7, 9, 3};
    printVec(v);
 
    auto m = v.begin() + v.size() / 2;
    std::nth_element(v.begin(), m, v.end());
    std::cout << "\nThe median is " << v[v.size() / 2] << '\n';
    // The consequence of the inequality of elements before/after the Nth one:
    assert(std::accumulate(v.begin(), m, 0) < std::accumulate(m, v.end(), 0));
    printVec(v);
 
    // Note: comp function changed
    std::nth_element(v.begin(), v.begin() + 1, v.end(), std::greater{});
    std::cout << "\nThe second largest element is " << v[1] << '\n';
    std::cout << "The largest element is " << v[0] << '\n';
    printVec(v);
}

v = {5, 10, 6, 4, 3, 2, 6, 7, 9, 3};
 
The median is 6
v = {3, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 7, 9, 6};
 
The second largest element is 9
The largest element is 10
v = {10, 9, 6, 7, 6, 3, 5, 4, 3, 2};

Defect reports

The following behavior-changing defect reports were applied retroactively to previously published C++ standards.

See also