Overhead to using std::vector?

Question

I know that manual dynamic memory allocation is a bad idea in general, but is it sometimes a better solution than using, say, std::vector?

To give a crude e

Answer 1

In n is known at compile-time, then you should choose std::array as:

std::array data; //n is compile-time constant

and if n is not known at compile-time, OR the array might grow at runtime, then go for std::vector:

std::vector data(n); //n may be known at runtime 

Or in some cases, you may also prefer std::deque which is faster than std::vector in some scenario. See these:

• C++ benchmark – std::vector VS std::list VS std::deque

• Using Vector and Deque by Herb Sutter

Hope that helps.