Find a Key in C++ Map

1. Use std::map::find Method to Find a Key in a Map
2. Use std::map::count Method to Find a Key in a Map
3. Use std::map::contains Method to Find a Key in a Map

This article explains how to find out if a specified key exists in a given map in C++. Note that all discussed methods have logarithmic time complexity.

Use std::map::find Method to Find a Key in a Map

To look up the specific key, we can use the find method, which traverses the map and returns the corresponding element. If it finds no element with a given key, the return value is the map.end() iterator. So, we exploit this feature and compare two iterator values in the if statement and print output:

#include <iostream>
#include <map>

using std::cout;
using std::cin;
using std::endl;
using std::map;
using std::string;

int main(){
    map<string, string> veggy_map = {{"a", "Asparagus",},
                                   {"b", "Beetroot",},
                                   {"g", "Ginger",},
                                   {"m", "Melon",},
                                   {"p", "Pumpkin",},
                                   {"s", "Spinach",}};
    string key_to_find = "m";

    if (veggy_map.find(key_to_find) != veggy_map.end()) {
        cout << "Key Exists!" << endl;
    }

    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

Output:

Key Exists!

Use std::map::count Method to Find a Key in a Map

Another method to search for a specific key is count. This function counts the number of elements associated with a given key. Since the std::map container does not allow duplicate keys, we can consider the answer to our problem affirmative if this method’s return value does not equal to zero.

#include <iostream>
#include <map>

using std::cout;
using std::cin;
using std::endl;
using std::map;
using std::string;

int main(){
    map<string, string> veggy_map = {{"a", "Asparagus",},
                                   {"b", "Beetroot",},
                                   {"g", "Ginger",},
                                   {"m", "Melon",},
                                   {"p", "Pumpkin",},
                                   {"s", "Spinach",}};
    string key_to_find = "m";

    if (veggy_map.count(key_to_find)) {
        cout << "Key Exists!" << endl;
    }

    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

If the given container is multimap, you can reuse the return value from the count method and pass it as several loop iterations as shown in the following example.

#include <iostream>
#include <map>

using std::cout;
using std::cin;
using std::endl;
using std::multimap;
using std::string;

int main(){
    multimap<string, string> veggy_map = {{"a", "Asparagus",},
                                   {"b", "Beetroot",},
                                   {"b", "Broccoli",},
                                   {"g", "Ginger",},
                                   {"m", "Melon",},
                                   {"p", "Pumpkin",},
                                   {"s", "Spinach",}};
    string key_to_find = "b";

    auto ret = veggy_map.count(key_to_find);
    while (ret) {
        cout << "Key Exists!" << endl;
        ret -= 1;
    }

    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

Output:

Key Exists!
Key Exists!

Use std::map::contains Method to Find a Key in a Map

This version utilizes the C++20 method contains, which is best suited for this task. The method returns true boolean value if the specified key element is found in the map.

#include <iostream>
#include <map>

using std::cout;
using std::cin;
using std::endl;
using std::map;
using std::string;

int main(){
    map<string, string> veggy_map = {{"a", "Asparagus",},
                                   {"b", "Beetroot",},
                                   {"g", "Ginger",},
                                   {"m", "Melon",},
                                   {"p", "Pumpkin",},
                                   {"s", "Spinach",}};
    string key_to_find = "m";

    if (veggy_map.contains(key_to_find)) {
        cout << "Key Exists!" << endl;
    }

    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

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