Каковы гарантии сложности стандартных контейнеров?

По-видимому ;-) стандартные контейнеры предоставляют определенные гарантии.

Какие гарантии и какие именно различия между различными типами контейнеров?

Работая со страницы SGI (около STL), я придумал следующее:

Container Types:
================
Container:
    Forward Container
        Reverse Container
            Random Access Container
    Sequence
        Front Insert Sequence
        Back  Insert Sequence
    Associative Container
        Simple   Associative Container
        Pair     Associative Container
        Sorted   Associative Container
        Multiple Associative Container

Container Types mapped to Standard Containers
=============================================

std::vector:    Sequence    Back        Sequence                    Forward/Reverse/Random Container
std::deque:     Sequence    Front/Back  Sequence                    Forward/Reverse/Random Container
std::list:      Sequence    Front/Back  Sequence                    Forward/Reverse Container
std::set:       Sorted/Simple/Unique    Associative Container       Forward Container
std::map:       Sorted/Pair/Unique      Associative Container       Forward Container
std::multiset:  Sorted/Simple/Multiple  Associative Container       Forward Container
std::multimap:  Sorted/Pair/Multiple    Associative Container       Forward Container


Container Guarantees:
=====================

                                                                                  Simp
                                                                                  or
                          For   Rev  Rand        Front  Back  Assoc        Sort   Mult
                    Cont: Cont: Cont Cont: Sequ: Sequ:  Sequ: Cont:        Cont:  Cont:
Copy    Const:      O(n)
Fill    Const:                             O(n)
begin()             O(1)
end()               O(1)
rbegin()                        O(1)
rend()                          O(1)
front()                                    O(1)
push_front()                                     O(1)
pop_front()                                      O(1)
push_back()                                             O(1)
pop_back()                                              O(1)
Insert()                                                                          O(ln(n))
Insert: fill                               O(n)
Insert: range                              O(n)                                   O(kln(n)+n)
size()              O(n)
swap()              O(1)
erase key                                                     O(ln(n))
erase element                                                 O(1)
erase range                                                   O(ln(n)+S)
count()                                                       O(log(n)+k)
find()                                                        O(ln(n))
equal range                                                   O(ln(n))
Lower Bound/Upper Bound                                                    O(ln(n))
Equality                  O(n)
InEquality                O(n)
Element Access                       O(1)

Ответы

vector<T> v;              Make an empty vector.                                     O(1)
vector<T> v(n);           Make a vector with N elements.                            O(n)
vector<T> v(n, value);    Make a vector with N elements, initialized to value.      O(n)
vector<T> v(begin, end);  Make a vector and copy the elements from begin to end.    O(n)

v[i]          Return (or set) the I'th element.                        O(1)
v.at(i)       Return (or set) the I'th element, with bounds checking.  O(1)
v.size()      Return current number of elements.                       O(1)
v.empty()     Return true if vector is empty.                          O(1)
v.begin()     Return random access iterator to start.                  O(1)
v.end()       Return random access iterator to end.                    O(1)
v.front()     Return the first element.                                O(1)
v.back()      Return the last element.                                 O(1)
v.capacity()  Return maximum number of elements.                       O(1)

v.push_back(value)         Add value to end.                                                O(1) (amortized)
v.insert(iterator, value)  Insert value at the position indexed by iterator.                O(n)
v.pop_back()               Remove value from end.                                           O(1)
v.assign(begin, end)       Clear the container and copy in the elements from begin to end.  O(n)
v.erase(iterator)          Erase value indexed by iterator.                                 O(n)
v.erase(begin, end)        Erase the elements from begin to end.                            O(n)