std::generate

C++

Language

Headers

Freestanding and hosted implementations

Named requirements

Language support library

Concepts library (C++20)

Diagnostics library

Utilities library

Strings library

Containers library

Algorithms library

Iterators library

Numerics library

Input/output library

Localizations library

Regular expressions library (C++11)

Atomic operations library (C++11)

Thread support library (C++11)

Filesystem library (C++17)

Technical Specifications

Algorithm library

Execution policies (C++17)
is_execution_policy	execution::seqexecution::parexecution::par_unseq	execution::sequenced_policyexecution::parallel_policyexecution::parallel_unsequenced_policy
Non-modifying sequence operations
all_ofany_ofnone_of (C++11)(C++11)(C++11) for_each for_each_n (C++17)	countcount_if mismatch equal adjacent_find	findfind_iffind_if_not (C++11) find_end find_first_of	search search_n lexicographical_compare lexicographical_compare_3way (C++20)
Modifying sequence operations
copycopy_if (C++11) copy_n (C++11) copy_backward move (C++11) move_backward (C++11) shift_leftshift_right (C++20)(C++20) transform	fill fill_n generate generate_n swap iter_swap swap_ranges sample (C++17)	removeremove_if replacereplace_if reverse rotate unique random_shuffle (until C++17)	remove_copyremove_copy_if replace_copyreplace_copy_if reverse_copy rotate_copy unique_copy shuffle (C++11)
Operations on uninitialized storage
uninitialized_copy uninitialized_move (C++17) uninitialized_fill	uninitialized_copy_n (C++11) uninitialized_move_n (C++17) uninitialized_fill_n	uninitialized_default_construct (C++17) uninitialized_value_construct (C++17) destroy (C++17)	uninitialized_default_construct_n (C++17) uninitialized_value_construct_n (C++17) destroy_n (C++17)
Partitioning operations
is_partitioned (C++11) partition_point (C++11)	partition partition_copy (C++11)	stable_partition
Sorting operations
is_sorted (C++11) is_sorted_until (C++11)	sort stable_sort	partial_sort partial_sort_copy	nth_element
Binary search operations
lower_bound	upper_bound	binary_search	equal_range
Set operations (on sorted ranges)
merge inplace_merge	set_difference set_intersection	set_symmetric_difference set_union	includes
Heap operations
is_heap (C++11) is_heap_until (C++11)	make_heap sort_heap	push_heap pop_heap
Minimum/maximum operations
max max_element	min min_element	minmax (C++11) minmax_element (C++11)	clamp (C++17) compare_3way (C++20)
Permutations
is_permutation (C++11)	next_permutation	prev_permutation
Numeric operations
iota (C++11) inner_product adjacent_difference	accumulate reduce (C++17) transform_reduce (C++17)	partial_sum inclusive_scan (C++17) exclusive_scan (C++17)	transform_inclusive_scan (C++17) transform_exclusive_scan (C++17)
C library
qsort	bsearch

Defined in header <algorithm>
	(1)
template< class ForwardIt, class Generator > void generate( ForwardIt first, ForwardIt last, Generator g );			(until C++20)
template< class ForwardIt, class Generator > constexpr void generate( ForwardIt first, ForwardIt last, Generator g );			(since C++20)
template< class ExecutionPolicy, class ForwardIt, class Generator > void generate( ExecutionPolicy&& policy, ForwardIt first, ForwardIt last, Generator g );		(2)	(since C++17)

1) Assigns each element in range [first, last) a value generated by the given function object g.

2) Same as (1), but executed according to policy. This overload only participates in overload resolution if std::is_execution_policy_v<std::decay_t<ExecutionPolicy>> is true.

Parameters

first, last	-	the range of elements to generate
policy	-	the execution policy to use. See execution policy for details.
g	-	generator function object that will be called. The signature of the function should be equivalent to the following: Ret fun(); The type Ret must be such that an object of type ForwardIt can be dereferenced and assigned a value of type Ret.
Type requirements
- ForwardIt must meet the requirements of ForwardIterator.

Return value

(none)

Complexity

Exactly std::distance(first, last) invocations of g() and assignments.

Exceptions

The overload with a template parameter named ExecutionPolicy reports errors as follows:

• If execution of a function invoked as part of the algorithm throws an exception and ExecutionPolicy is one of the three standard policies, std::terminate is called. For any other ExecutionPolicy, the behavior is implementation-defined.
• If the algorithm fails to allocate memory, std::bad_alloc is thrown.

Possible implementation

template<class ForwardIt, class Generator> void generate(ForwardIt first, ForwardIt last, Generator g) { while (first != last) { *first++ = g(); } }

Example

Run this code

#include <algorithm>
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>

int f()
{ 
    static int i = 1;
    return i++;
}

int main()
{
    std::vector<int> v(5);
    std::generate(v.begin(), v.end(), f);

    std::cout << "v: ";
    for (auto iv: v) {
        std::cout << iv << " ";
    }
    std::cout << "\n";

    // Initialize with default values 0,1,2,3,4 from a lambda function
    // Equivalent to std::iota(v.begin(), v.end(), 0);
    std::generate(v.begin(), v.end(), [n = 0] () mutable { return n++; });

    std::cout << "v: ";
    for (auto iv: v) {
        std::cout << iv << " ";
    }
    std::cout << "\n";
}

Output:

v: 1 2 3 4 5
v: 0 1 2 3 4

See also

fill	copy-assigns the given value to every element in a range (function template)
generate_n	assigns the results of successive function calls to N elements in a range (function template)
iota (C++11)	fills a range with successive increments of the starting value (function template)