Thread: wat to use?

The reason for this is that std::map's operator< will treat our keys as numeric values, and therfor compare the address where our pointers are pointing. But we want to sort them alphabetically - and therefor we should write our own operator< for this.
It is only proper to use std::less when dealing with numeric values, imo.

The obvious solution is not to use C style strings

std::less is not only proper with numeric values but with any types that define operator< (which is what less calls), e.g std::string.

Yes. I just wanted to point out that std::pair already has operator< (which does the exact opposite of your comparison functor) and as long as both types in the pair have a usable operator< (like char) you don't need to write your own for something like std::pair<char, char>.

And the fact that C style strings require all that extra work to make them work with STL should discourage their use (in such contexts). You don't normally want to let a C style string close to standard containers.