moving elements in a vector is not working as expected

Question

I'm trying to move each element that has x value to the beginning of vector so that all the element that has x value is at the front of the vector, but it is not working , so can you tell me what I've done wrong, please?

#include <iostream>
#include <algorithm>
#include <vector>

using namespace std;

template <typename Container, typename Arg>
void move_x(Container& c, Arg x)
{
    typename Container::iterator it = find(c.begin(), c.end(), x);
    if (it!=c.end()) {
        c.insert(c.begin(), *it);
       remove (it, c.end(), x);
    }
}
int main()
{
    int x=1;
    vector <int> v{1,2,4,6,7,1,3,1,1,8,9};

    move_x(v, x);
    for(auto i:v)
        cout<<v[i];

    return 0;
}

and I'm getting this output when I run it

411613848811

Answer 1

Once you insert into the container, the iterator is no longer valid

    c.insert(c.begin(), *it); // This invalidates 'it'    
    remove (it, c.end(), x); // oops! trying to use invalid iterator

Using std::rotate provides better alternative, which doesn't invalidate the iterators:

template <typename Container, typename Arg>
void move_x(Container& c, Arg x)
{
    typedef typename Container::iterator It;
    It write_it = c.begin(), read_it = c.begin();
    for (;;) {
        It found_it = find(read_it, c.end(), x);
        if (found_it==c.end()) break;
        read_it = found_it;
        ++read_it;
        std::rotate(write_it,found_it,read_it);
        ++write_it;
    }
}

As long as you are dealing with simple items like ints, this is a good approach:

template <typename Container, typename Arg>
void move_x(Container& c, Arg x)
{
    typename Container::reverse_iterator it = std::remove(c.rbegin(),c.rend(),x);

    for (;it!=c.rend();++it) {
        *it = x;
    }
}