Iterating C++ vector from the end to the beginning

Starting with c++20, you can use a std::ranges::reverse_view and a range-based for-loop:

#include<ranges>
#include<vector>
#include<iostream>

using namespace std::ranges;

std::vector<int> const vec{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10};

for(auto& i :  views::reverse(vec)) {
    std::cout << i << ",";
}

Or even

for(auto& i :  vec | views::reverse)

Unfortunately, at the time of writing (Jan 2020) no major compiler implements the ranges library, but you can resort to Eric Niebler's ranges-v3:

#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
#include "range/v3/all.hpp"

int main() {

    using namespace ranges;

    std::vector<int> const vec{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10};
    for(auto& i :  views::reverse(vec)) {
        std::cout << i << ",";
    }

    return 0;
}

I like the backwards iterator at the end of Yakk - Adam Nevraumont's answer, but it seemed complicated for what I needed, so I wrote this:

template <class T>
class backwards {
    T& _obj;
public:
    backwards(T &obj) : _obj(obj) {}
    auto begin() {return _obj.rbegin();}
    auto end() {return _obj.rend();}
};

I'm able to take a normal iterator like this:

for (auto &elem : vec) {
    // ... my useful code
}

and change it to this to iterate in reverse:

for (auto &elem : backwards(vec)) {
    // ... my useful code
}

If you can use The Boost Library, there is the Boost.Range that provides the reverse range adapter by including:

#include <boost/range/adaptor/reversed.hpp>

Then, in combination with a C++11's range-for loop, you can just write the following:

for (auto& elem: boost::adaptors::reverse(my_vector)) {
   // ...
}

Since this code is briefer than the one using the iterator pair, it may be more readable and less prone to errors as there are fewer details to pay attention to.

Here's a super simple implementation that allows use of the for each construct and relies only on C++14 std library:

namespace Details {

    // simple storage of a begin and end iterator
    template<class T>
    struct iterator_range
    {
        T beginning, ending;
        iterator_range(T beginning, T ending) : beginning(beginning), ending(ending) {}

        T begin() const { return beginning; }
        T end() const { return ending; }
    };

}

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// usage:
//  for (auto e : backwards(collection))
template<class T>
auto backwards(T & collection)
{
    using namespace std;
    return Details::iterator_range(rbegin(collection), rend(collection));
}

This works with things that supply an rbegin() and rend(), as well as with static arrays.

std::vector<int> collection{ 5, 9, 15, 22 };
for (auto e : backwards(collection))
    ;

long values[] = { 3, 6, 9, 12 };
for (auto e : backwards(values))
    ;

As I don't want to introduce alien-like new C++ syntax, and I simply want to build up on existing primitives, the below snippets seems to work:

#include <vector>
#include <iostream>

int main (int argc,char *argv[])
{
    std::vector<int> arr{1,2,3,4,5};
    std::vector<int>::iterator it;

    // iterate forward
    for (it = arr.begin(); it != arr.end(); it++) {
        std::cout << *it << " ";
    }

    std::cout << "\n************\n";
 
    if (arr.size() > 0) {
        // iterate backward, simple Joe version
        it = arr.end() - 1;
        while (it != arr.begin()) {
            std::cout << *it << " ";
            it--;
        }
        std::cout << *it << " ";
    } 

    // iterate backwards, the C++ way
    std::vector<int>::reverse_iterator rit;
    for (rit = arr.rbegin(); rit != arr.rend(); rit++) {
        std::cout << *rit << " ";
    }

    return 0;
}