I have forgotten

# min_element

Returns the element with the smallest value
View version details

### Key Facts

Gyroscopic Couple: The rate of change of angular momentum ($\inline&space;\tau$) = $\inline&space;I\omega\Omega$ (In the limit).
• $\inline&space;I$ = Moment of Inertia.
• $\inline&space;\omega$ = Angular velocity
• $\inline&space;\Omega$ = Angular velocity of precession.

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic philosopher.

Leonhard Euler (1707-1783) was a pioneering Swiss mathematician and physicist.

## Definition

The min_element() algorithm is defined in the standard header <algorithm> and in the nonstandard backward-compatibility header <algo.h>.

## Interface

#include <algorithm>
template < class ForwardIterator >
ForwardIterator min_element(
ForwardIterator first,
ForwardIterator last
);
template < class ForwardIterator, class BinaryPredicate >
ForwardIterator min_element(
ForwardIterator first,
ForwardIterator last,
BinaryPredicate comp
);

Parameters:
Parameter Description
first A forward iterator addressing the position of the first element in the range to be searched for the largest element
last A forward iterator addressing the position one past the final element in the range to be searched for the largest element
comp User-defined predicate function object that defines the sense in which one element is greater than another. The binary predicate takes two arguments and should return true when the first element is less than the second element and false otherwise

## Description

Min_element finds the smallest element in the range [first, last).

The first version compares objects using operator< and the second compares objects using a function object comp.

## Return Value

Returns the lowest element in the range [first, last).

## Complexity

The complexity is linear; performs exactly (last - first) - 1 comparisons.

### References

Example:
##### Example - min_element algorithm
Problem
This program illustrates the use of the STL min_element() algorithm (default version) to find the minimum value in a vector of integers.
Workings
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
#include <algorithm>

using namespace std;

int main()
{
int a[] = {8, 6, 10, 2, 4};
vector<int> v(a, a+5);

cout <<"\nHere are the integer values in the vector:\n";
for (vector<int>::size_type i=0; i<v.size(); i++)
cout <<v.at(i)<<" ";

cout <<"\nThe minimum value in the vector is "
<<*min_element(v.begin(), v.end())<<".";

return 0;
}
Solution
Output:

Here are the integer values in the vector:
8 6 10 2 4

The minimum value in the vector is 2.
References