Regarding the batched insert, we have previously discussed the complexity of inserting a range. Fundamentally, however, I don't think it is acceptable to have efficient insertion ONLY in the case of the insert(begin,end) method: it is too common to want to insert several values in a loop without creating a temporary container. I'm not aware of any established (i.e. std:: or boost::) pattern for doing this:
There is no need to create a temporary container to use a method that takes a pair of iterators. With the help of the Boost.Range library and some lambdas (Boost.Phoenix or C++0x, depending on your taste and constraints), you should be able to create a lazy range view of wherever you're getting your data from in your loop. I do this fairly regularly in the code I write, and it has worked well for me. On occasion I need to write a custom iterator, but that is by far the exception and not the rule. There is also a Boost.Range extension library called P-Stade Oven [1] which provides many additional range algorithms and range adaptors; I've found these very helpful too. Regards, Nate [1] http://p-stade.sourceforge.net/oven/doc/html/index.html