Iterator access performance for STL map vs. vector?

Question

What is the performance difference between using an iterator to loop through an STL map, versus a vector? I\'d like to use the map key for insertion, deletion, and some accesses

Answer 1

Browsing the tree is not expensive (grosso modo like following a linked list), you won't benefit from the cache as much with a vector, but generally it's what you do when you iterate that is expensive, not the iteration itself.

Could you tell us more about what you expect to do when you iterate through the whole map?