Consider the following code snippet:
#include <iostream>
#include <ctime>
#include <vector>
#include <list>
using namespace std;
#define NUM_ITER 100000
int main() {
clock_t t = clock();
std::list< int > my_list;
std::vector< std::list< int >::iterator > list_ptr;
list_ptr.reserve(NUM_ITER);
for(int i = 0; i < NUM_ITER; ++i) {
my_list.push_back(0);
list_ptr.push_back(--(my_list.end()));
}
while(my_list.size() > 0) {
my_list.erase(list_ptr[list_ptr.size()-1]);
list_ptr.pop_back();
}
cout << "Done in: " << 1000*(clock()-t)/CLOCKS_PER_SEC << " msec!" << endl;
}
When I compile and run it with visual studio, all optimizations enabled, I get the output:
Done in: 8 msec!
When I compile and run it with g++, using the flags
g++ main.cpp -pedantic -O2
I get the output
Done in: 7349 msec!
Which is rougly 1000 times slower. Why is that? According to the "cppreference" calling erase on a list is supposed to use up only constant time.
The code was compiled and executed on the same machine.