The versions for initializer lists (3) return the largest of all the elements in the list. Returning the first of them if these are more than one.

The function uses operator< (or comp, if provided) to compare the values.

The behavior of this function template (C++98) is equivalent to:

1
2
3

template <class T> const T& max (const T& a, const T& b) {
  return (a<b)?b:a;     // or: return comp(a,b)?b:a; for version (2)
}

Parameters

a, b

Values to compare.

comp

Binary function that accepts two values of type T as arguments, and returns a value convertible to bool. The value returned indicates whether the element passed as first argument is considered less than the second.
The function shall not modify any of its arguments.
This can either be a function pointer or a function object.

il

An initializer_list object.
These objects are automatically constructed from initializer list declarators.

Return value

Example

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11

// max example
#include <iostream>     // std::cout
#include <algorithm>    // std::max

int main () {
  std::cout << "max(1,2)==" << std::max(1,2) << '\n';
  std::cout << "max(2,1)==" << std::max(2,1) << '\n';
  std::cout << "max('a','z')==" << std::max('a','z') << '\n';
  std::cout << "max(3.14,2.73)==" << std::max(3.14,2.73) << '\n';
  return 0;
}

max(1,2)==2
max(2,1)==2
max('a','z')==z
max(3.14,2.73)==3.14

Complexity

Exceptions

See also

min

Return the smallest (function template)

max_element

Return largest element in range (function template)