A comparison on C-style pointer arrays and STL vectors

c_array_ptr.cpp

#include<iostream>
#include<vector>

/** Attention pointer lovers! You can declare C-style arrays as pointers and
 *  assign them to the reference returned by "new"ing a normal C array.
 *
 *  But don't. Please.
 */

int main()
{
  // why do this...
  int *a;
  a = new int[5];
  a[3] = 2;
  a[4] = 1;
  std::cout << "a:" << std::endl;
  for(int i = 0; i < 5; i++)
    std::cout << a[i] << std::endl;

  // ...when you can do this?
  std::vector<int> b(5);
  b[3] = 2;
  b[4] = 1;
  std::cout << "b:" << std::endl;
  for(size_t i = 0; i < b.size(); i++)
    std::cout << b[i] << std::endl;

  return 0;
}