Binders turn functions/functors with two arguments into functors with a single argument, storing an argument to be applied later. For example, a variable B of type binder1st is constructed from a functor f and an argument x. Later, B's operator() is called with a single argument y. The return value is the value of f(x,y). B can be called with various arguments (y1, y2, ...) and will in turn call f(x,y1), f(x,y2), ...

The function bind1st is provided to save some typing. It takes the function and an argument as parameters, and returns an instance of binder1st.

The type binder2nd and its creator function bind2nd do the same thing, but the stored argument is passed as the second parameter instead of the first, e.g., bind2nd(std::minus<float>(),1.3) will create a functor whose operator() accepts a floating-point number, subtracts 1.3 from it, and returns the result. (If bind1st had been used, the functor would perform 1.3 - x instead.

Creator-wrapper functions like bind1st are intended to be used in calling algorithms. Their return values will be temporary objects. (The goal is to not require you to type names like std::binder1st<std::plus<int>> for declaring a variable to hold the return value from bind1st(std::plus<int>(),5).

These become more useful when combined with the composition functions.

These functions are deprecated in C++11 and can be replaced by std::bind (or std::tr1::bind) which is more powerful and flexible, supporting functions with any number of arguments. Uses of bind1st can be replaced by std::bind(f, x, std::placeholders::_1) and bind2nd by std::bind(f, std::placeholders::_1, x).