A container is a special type of object that contains and manages other objects. Container types come in many different styles and arrangements, each one tailored to store data and objects in different ways depending on what characteristics are demanded of the store. The most common kinds of containers can be divided into two broad categories: sequence containers and associative containers.

Sequence containers are simple containers that store their data objects in a linear sequence like a shopping list. For example, probably the simplest kind of sequence container is the simple array, which is essentially a contiguous block of memory allocated to hold a predefined number of objects. Arrays are very simple to set up and use in most languages, but they suffer from a number of drawbacks: moving things around in them can be costly in terms of time and computing power, and they are inflexible--once defined...