Re:CS Newbie here. (Score 1)

Of course, erase() invalidates iterator. That's one of the first things you read in documentation http://www.sgi.com/tech/stl/Map.html If you don't, it's your own fault. In C++ you can write exception-safe easier than in Java, because of RAII (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_Acquisition_Is_Initialization) concept.