What's the size limit of a vector?

Use std::vector::max_size() function.

Don’t confuse this function with std::vector::capacity() and std::vector::size() functions. vector::capacity() tells us when a vector will be reallocated and vector::size() tells us the count of elements inserted into a vector.

Source code of vector::max_size looks like this…

_SIZT max_size() const _THROW0()
{
   // estimate maximum array size
   _SIZT _Count = (_SIZT)(-1) / sizeof (_Ty);
   return (0 < _Count ? _Count : 1);
}

-1 is being cast to _SIZT and then divided by the sizeof the vector type. Have a look at the following illustration…

template<class T>
void PrintVectorMaxSize( std::vector<t>& Obj)
{
   const std::vector</t><t>::size_type MaxSize = Obj.max_size();
   std::cout < < "Max elements that can be inserted into a vector having elements of size '" << sizeof( T )
             << "' is: " << MaxSize << std::endl;
}

int main()
{
   PrintVectorMaxSize( std::vector<byte>() );
   PrintVectorMaxSize( std::vector<int>() );
   PrintVectorMaxSize( std::vector<double>() );
   PrintVectorMaxSize( std::vector<char *>() );
}

Here is the output for the above program…

Max elements that can be inserted into a vector having elements of size ’1′ is: 4294967295
Max elements that can be inserted into a vector having elements of size ’4′ is: 1073741823
Max elements that can be inserted into a vector having elements of size ’8′ is: 536870911
Max elements that can be inserted into a vector having elements of size ’4′ is: 1073741823

PS: Please edit those html tags inserted by code formatter before compilation.

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