The Perl Toolchain Summit needs more sponsors. If your company depends on Perl, please support this very important event.
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
 "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en"
 lang="en" dir="ltr">
<head>
  <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
  <title>
    max_element    [C++ Reference]
  </title>

  <meta name="generator" content="DokuWiki Release 2009-12-25c &quot;Lemming&quot;" />
<meta name="robots" content="index,follow" />
<meta name="date" content="2009-10-09T02:16:41-0700" />
<meta name="keywords" content="stl,algorithm,max_element" />
<link rel="search" type="application/opensearchdescription+xml" href="/wiki/lib/exe/opensearch.php" title="C++ Reference" />
<link rel="start" href="/wiki/" />
<link rel="contents" href="/wiki/stl/algorithm/max_element?do=index" title="Index" />
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Recent Changes" href="/wiki/feed.php" />
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Current Namespace" href="/wiki/feed.php?mode=list&amp;ns=stl:algorithm" />
<link rel="edit" title="Edit this page" href="/wiki/stl/algorithm/max_element?do=edit" />
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Plain HTML" href="/wiki/_export/xhtml/stl/algorithm/max_element" />
<link rel="alternate" type="text/plain" title="Wiki Markup" href="/wiki/_export/raw/stl/algorithm/max_element" />
<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.cppreference.com/wiki/stl/algorithm/max_element" />
<link rel="stylesheet" media="all" type="text/css" href="/wiki/lib/exe/css.php?s=all&amp;t=custom1&amp;tseed=1272971091" />
<link rel="stylesheet" media="screen" type="text/css" href="/wiki/lib/exe/css.php?t=custom1&amp;tseed=1272971091" />
<link rel="stylesheet" media="print" type="text/css" href="/wiki/lib/exe/css.php?s=print&amp;t=custom1&amp;tseed=1272971091" />
<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8" ><!--//--><![CDATA[//><!--
var NS='stl:algorithm';var JSINFO = {"id":"stl:algorithm:max_element","namespace":"stl:algorithm"};
//--><!]]></script>
<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8" src="/wiki/lib/exe/js.php?tseed=1272971091" ></script>

  <link rel="shortcut icon" href="/wiki/lib/tpl/custom1/images/favicon.png" />

  </head>

<body>
<div class="dokuwiki">
  
  <div class="stylehead">

    <div class="breadcrumbs">
      <span class="bchead">You are here: </span><a href="../../start.html"  title="start">C++ Reference</a> &raquo; <a href="../../stl/start.html"  title="stl:start">C++ Standard Template Library</a> &raquo; <a href="../../stl/algorithm/start.html"  title="stl:algorithm:start">C++ Algorithms</a> &raquo; <a href="../../stl/algorithm/max_element.html"  title="stl:algorithm:max_element">max_element</a>    </div>
    
  </div>


  
  
  <div class="page">

    <script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
_uacct = "UA-2828341-1";
urchinTracker();
</script>
    <!-- wikipage start -->
    


<h2><a name="max_element" id="max_element">max_element</a></h2>
<div class="level2">

<p>
Syntax:
</p>
<pre class="c code c++" style="font-family:monospace;">  <span class="co2">#include &lt;algorithm&gt;</span>
  forward_iterator max_element<span class="br0">&#40;</span> forward_iterator start<span class="sy0">,</span> forward_iterator end <span class="br0">&#41;</span><span class="sy0">;</span>
  forward_iterator max_element<span class="br0">&#40;</span> forward_iterator start<span class="sy0">,</span> forward_iterator end<span class="sy0">,</span> BinPred p <span class="br0">&#41;</span><span class="sy0">;</span></pre>
<p>
The max_element() function returns an iterator to the largest element in the
range [start,end).
</p>

<p>
If the binary predicate p is given, then it will be used instead of the &lt;
operator to determine the largest element.
</p>

<p>
For example, the following code uses the max_element() function to determine
the largest integer in an array and the largest character in a vector of
characters:
</p>
<pre class="c code c++" style="font-family:monospace;">  <span class="kw4">int</span> array<span class="br0">&#91;</span><span class="br0">&#93;</span> <span class="sy0">=</span> <span class="br0">&#123;</span> 3<span class="sy0">,</span> 1<span class="sy0">,</span> 4<span class="sy0">,</span> 1<span class="sy0">,</span> 5<span class="sy0">,</span> 9 <span class="br0">&#125;</span><span class="sy0">;</span>
  <span class="kw4">unsigned</span> <span class="kw4">int</span> array_size <span class="sy0">=</span> <span class="kw4">sizeof</span><span class="br0">&#40;</span>array<span class="br0">&#41;</span> <span class="sy0">/</span> <span class="kw4">sizeof</span><span class="br0">&#40;</span>array<span class="br0">&#91;</span>0<span class="br0">&#93;</span><span class="br0">&#41;</span><span class="sy0">;</span>
  <a href="http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/cout.html"><span class="kw3">cout</span></a> <span class="sy0">&lt;&lt;</span> <span class="st0">&quot;Max element in array is &quot;</span> <span class="sy0">&lt;&lt;</span> <span class="sy0">*</span>max_element<span class="br0">&#40;</span>array<span class="sy0">,</span> array<span class="sy0">+</span>array_size<span class="br0">&#41;</span> <span class="sy0">&lt;&lt;</span> endl<span class="sy0">;</span>
&nbsp;
  vector<span class="sy0">&lt;</span>char<span class="sy0">&gt;</span> v<span class="sy0">;</span>
  v.<span class="me1">push_back</span><span class="br0">&#40;</span><span class="st0">'a'</span><span class="br0">&#41;</span><span class="sy0">;</span> v.<span class="me1">push_back</span><span class="br0">&#40;</span><span class="st0">'b'</span><span class="br0">&#41;</span><span class="sy0">;</span> v.<span class="me1">push_back</span><span class="br0">&#40;</span><span class="st0">'c'</span><span class="br0">&#41;</span><span class="sy0">;</span> v.<span class="me1">push_back</span><span class="br0">&#40;</span><span class="st0">'d'</span><span class="br0">&#41;</span><span class="sy0">;</span>
  <a href="http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/cout.html"><span class="kw3">cout</span></a> <span class="sy0">&lt;&lt;</span> <span class="st0">&quot;Max element in the vector v is &quot;</span> <span class="sy0">&lt;&lt;</span> <span class="sy0">*</span>max_element<span class="br0">&#40;</span>v.<span class="me1">begin</span><span class="br0">&#40;</span><span class="br0">&#41;</span><span class="sy0">,</span> v.<span class="me1">end</span><span class="br0">&#40;</span><span class="br0">&#41;</span><span class="br0">&#41;</span> <span class="sy0">&lt;&lt;</span> endl<span class="sy0">;</span></pre>
<p>
When run, the above code displays this output:
</p>
<pre class="code">
   Max element in array is 9
   Max element in the vector v is d</pre>
<p>
Related Topics: <a href="../../stl/algorithm/max.html" class="wikilink1" title="stl:algorithm:max">max</a>, <a href="../../stl/algorithm/min.html" class="wikilink1" title="stl:algorithm:min">min</a>, <a href="../../stl/algorithm/min_element.html" class="wikilink1" title="stl:algorithm:min_element">min_element</a>
</p>

</div>

    <!-- wikipage stop -->
  </div>

  <div class="clearer">&nbsp;</div>

  
  <div class="stylefoot">

    <div class="meta">
      <div class="user">
              </div>
      <!--
      <div class="doc">
        stl/algorithm/max_element.txt &middot; Last modified: 10/09/2009 02:16 by 124.255.102.233      </div>
      -->
    </div>

   
    </div></div></body>
</html>