templates - Obtain container type from (its) iterator type in C++ (STL)

Question

It is easy given a container to get the associated iterators, example:

std::vector<double>::iterator i; //An iterator to a std::vector<double>

I was wondering if it is possible, given an iterator type, to deduce the type of the "corresponding container" (here I am assuming that for each container there is one and only one (non-const) iterator).

More precisely, I would like a template metafunction that works with all STL containers (without having to specialize it manually for each single container) such that, for example:

ContainerOf< std::vector<double>::iterator >::type 

evaluates to

std::vector<double>

Is it possible? If not, why?

Thank you in advance for any help!

Answer 1

I don't think this would be possible. On some STL libraries you actually have a vector iterator as a pointer type, i.e. std::vector<T>::iterator is a T* so I can't think of any way you could get back to the container type from that.