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

<p>
Syntax:
</p>
<pre class="c code c++" style="font-family:monospace;">    <span class="co2">#include &lt;string&gt;</span>
    iterator erase<span class="br0">&#40;</span> iterator loc <span class="br0">&#41;</span><span class="sy0">;</span>
    iterator erase<span class="br0">&#40;</span> iterator start<span class="sy0">,</span> iterator end <span class="br0">&#41;</span><span class="sy0">;</span>
    basic_string<span class="sy0">&amp;</span> erase<span class="br0">&#40;</span> size_type index <span class="sy0">=</span> 0<span class="sy0">,</span> size_type num <span class="sy0">=</span> npos <span class="br0">&#41;</span><span class="sy0">;</span></pre>
<p>

The erase() function either:

</p>
<ul>
<li class="level1"><div class="li"> removes the character pointed to by <code>loc</code>, returning an iterator to the character after the last character removed</div>
</li>
<li class="level1"><div class="li"> removes all characters between <code>start</code> and <code>end</code>, returning an iterator to the next character (not the one at end)</div>
</li>
<li class="level1"><div class="li"> removes <code>num</code> characters starting from <code>index</code>, returning the modified string. The parameters <code>index</code> and <code>num</code> have default values, which means that erase() can be called with just <code>index</code> to erase all characters after <code>index</code> or with no arguments to erase all characters.</div>
</li>
</ul>

<p>

For example:
</p>
<pre class="c code c++" style="font-family:monospace;">  <span class="kw4">string</span> s<span class="br0">&#40;</span><span class="st0">&quot;So, you like donuts, eh? Well, have all the donuts in the world!&quot;</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;The original string is '&quot;</span> <span class="sy0">&lt;&lt;</span> s <span class="sy0">&lt;&lt;</span> <span class="st0">&quot;'&quot;</span> <span class="sy0">&lt;&lt;</span> endl<span class="sy0">;</span>
&nbsp;
  s.<span class="me1">erase</span><span class="br0">&#40;</span> 50<span class="sy0">,</span> 13 <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;Now the string is '&quot;</span> <span class="sy0">&lt;&lt;</span> s <span class="sy0">&lt;&lt;</span> <span class="st0">&quot;'&quot;</span> <span class="sy0">&lt;&lt;</span> endl<span class="sy0">;</span>
  s.<span class="me1">erase</span><span class="br0">&#40;</span> 24 <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;Now the string is '&quot;</span> <span class="sy0">&lt;&lt;</span> s <span class="sy0">&lt;&lt;</span> <span class="st0">&quot;'&quot;</span> <span class="sy0">&lt;&lt;</span> endl<span class="sy0">;</span>
  s.<span class="me1">erase</span><span class="br0">&#40;</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;Now the string is '&quot;</span> <span class="sy0">&lt;&lt;</span> s <span class="sy0">&lt;&lt;</span> <span class="st0">&quot;'&quot;</span> <span class="sy0">&lt;&lt;</span> endl<span class="sy0">;</span></pre>
<p>
will display
</p>
<pre class="code">
  The original string is 'So, you like donuts, eh? Well, have all the donuts in the world!'
  Now the string is 'So, you like donuts, eh? Well, have all the donuts!'
  Now the string is 'So, you like donuts, eh?'
  Now the string is ''</pre>
<p>
erase() runs in <a href="../complexity.html" class="wikilink1" title="complexity">linear time</a>.
</p>

<p>
Related Topics: <a href="../string/insert.html" class="wikilink1" title="string:insert">insert</a>
</p>

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