If I find an alement in a vector pairs using std:find, how can I get the values from the vector into a string?

Question

After using the find function to check if string check; is in a vector<pair<string, string>> by checking the pair[i].first, i would like to get the elements in pair[i].second into a separate string string holder;

how would I do this without using loops or is it inevitable and that's the only way? Can the find function return the value in addition to the true or false?

Answer 1

Dereference the iterator returned by the std::find function. The underlying value the iterator points to is of type std::pair. To access the pair's underlying member objects called first and second via an iterator use ->first and ->second respectively:

std::vector<std::pair<std::string, std::string>> v { {"aa", "bb"}, { "cc", "dd" }};
auto mypair = std::make_pair<std::string, std::string>("cc", "dd");
auto foundit = std::find(std::begin(v), std::end(v), mypair);
std::string s1;
std::string s2;
if (foundit != std::end(v)) {
    s1 = foundit->first; // first element
    s2 = foundit->second; // second element
}
else {
    std::cout << "v does not contain the pair." << '\n';
}