Vectors are nice..and useless at times
I have gotten into the habit of using std::vector for a lot of things. However I wanted to ask why in the world the STL designers made removing items from a vector invalidate every iterator/index after the removed item? This is a major drawback to an otherwise extremely nice container.
The problem of invalidation though makes a vector useless in certain instances. I've looked for a container that allows array like access and does not invalidate iterators when objects are removed. One could use the vector as a recycling array that did not remove the actual item from the vector but rather nullifed the data. The iterator would then be stored as a cached iterator and the add() function would then look at this. If it was null or invalid it would add to the end, if it was valid it would add where the last 'removal' was done. This does not require an invalidation of items beyond the 'removal' point.
I've looked at other container types in the STL and just cannot find a good fit for what I need. I don't want a static array because I don't want to iterate the entire array if only 5 elements are valid in the array. Yes I could code my own container type and have already, but I was wondering if there was an STL equivalent?