C++ Primer, Fifth Edition

9.2.1. Iterators

As with the containers, iterators have a common interface: If an iterator provides an operation, then the operation is supported in the same way for each iterator that supplies that operation. For example, all the iterators on the standard container types let us access an element from a container, and they all do so by providing the dereference operator. Similarly, the iterators for the library containers all define the increment operator to move from one element to the next.

With one exception, the container iterators support all the operations listed in Table 3.6 (p. 107). The exception is that the forward_list iterators do ...