Sort std::vector but ignore a certain number

Question

I have an std::vector of the size 10 and each entry is initially -1. This vector represents a leaderboard for my game (high scores), and -1 just means th

Answer 1

An alternative approach is to use reserve() instead of resize().

std::vector myVector;
myVector.reserve(10);

for each line in file:
  int number_in_line = ...;
  myVector.push_back(number_in_line);

std::sort(myVector.begin(), myVector.end());

This way, the vector would have only the numbers that are actually in file, no extra (spurious) values (e.g. -1). If the vector need to be later passed to other module or function for further processing, they do not need to know about the special nature of '-1' values.