How to Remove an Element from a List in C++?

In C++, the STL provides a std::list container that represents a doubly linked list to store the sequential data in non-contiguous memory locations. In this article, we will learn how to remove an element from a list in C++.

Example:

Input: 
myList = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8}
Target = 5

Output: 
// removed element 5 from the list 
myList = {1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8}

Removing an Element from a List in C++

In C++, the std::list class template provides a member function std::list::remove() that can be used to remove a specific element from a list. The function accepts the value of the element to be removed and then removes all elements that compare equal to the specified value from the list.

Syntax of std::list::remove

list_name.remove(value_to_remove); 

C++ Program to Remove an Element from a List

The below example demonstrates the use of the std::list::remove() function to remove an element from a std::list in C++ STL.

C++

// C++ program to illustrate how to remove an element from a
// list

#include <iostream>
#include <list>
using namespace std;

int main()
{
    // Creating a list of integers
    list<int> nums = { 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 };

    // Element to remove
    int target = 50;

    // Print the initial list
    cout << "List before removal: ";
    for (auto num : nums) {
        cout << num << " ";
    }
    cout << endl;

    // Removing the element from the list
    nums.remove(target);

    // Printing the list after removal
    cout << "List after removal : ";
    for (int num : nums) {
        cout << num << " ";
    }
    cout << endl;

    return 0;
}

Output

List before removal: 10 20 30 40 50 
List after removal : 10 20 30 40 

Time Complexity: O(n), where n is the number of elements in the list.
Auxiliary Space: O(1)