Normally, if I want to find whether the key exists in map STL(C++), the first thing come up to my mind is if(map1[key1]). However, this is wrong, because if there is no key equals to key1, map1[key1] will return 0 and if there is a key1 but its value is 0, then it will also return 0; So this method is not feasible.

There are generally two ways to determine whether the key exists in map.

Find function

find function returns an iterator.

map<int, int> test;

if(test.find(key) == test.end()) {
    // the key doesn't exists
}

Count Function

if(test.count(key) == 0) {
	// the key doesn't exists
}

Author: o_oyao

Link: http://dyingdown.github.io/2020/09/03/Whether-key-value-in-MAP-exists/

License: All articles in this blog are licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 unless stating additionally.