Syntax:

    #include <algorithm>
    iterator remove( iterator start, iterator end, const TYPE& val );

The remove() algorithm removes all of the elements in the range [start,end) that are equal to val.

The return value of this function is an iterator after the last element of the new sequence that should contain no elements equal to val.

Note that remove() doesn't actually “remove” things from the range [start, end); if remove() is called on a container, the length of the container will remain the same afterwards (remove() couldn't possibly affect that through the iterators alone), and all the elements will still be in the container. Instead, remove() puts all the “removed” elements to the end of the container, and returns the iterator that separates the not-removed and removed elements. To actually remove items from a container, you would have to call the erase() method of the container, to erase elements starting at the returned iterator. This is usually combined in what is called the erase-remove idiom:

container.erase(remove(container.begin(), container.end(), val), container.end());

The remove() function runs in linear time.

Related Topics: remove_copy, remove_copy_if, remove_if, unique, unique_copy