algorithms over vector: offsets or iterators for speed?

Hi,

If I have

Code:

std::vector<SomeNode> NodeList;

and a hand written algorithm which does most of the time throw around some kind of references to the nodes inside nodelist (store, delete, compare, sort, move, de-reference the references).

What is faster: using offset as reference into the vector or better use iterators?

I'm not sure.
While using offsets I'm doomed to always have one indirection.
But are iterators really faster? I know in VS2005 they are of class type (at least in debug mode) to allow a lot of run time checks. What happens in release? are they plain pointers there?

Thank you!

Basically they're about the same. There a why one might be a smidgen faster than the other on certain processors, but basically there isn't any noticeable difference.

You should prefer to use iterators though because it more easily allows for a change of container type.

thanks!
there should be 2 other points for using iterators
-they can be made const
-I can rely on iterator debugging in debug mode