A proper way to create a matrix in c++

Note that also you can use boost.ublas for matrix creation and manipulation and also boost.graph to represent and manipulate graphs in a number of ways, as well as using algorithms on them, etc.

Edit: Anyway, doing a range-check version of a vector for your purposes is not a hard thing:

template <typename T>
class BoundsMatrix
{
        std::vector<T> inner_;
        unsigned int dimx_, dimy_;

public:
        BoundsMatrix (unsigned int dimx, unsigned int dimy)
                : dimx_ (dimx), dimy_ (dimy)
        {
                inner_.resize (dimx_*dimy_);
        }

        T& operator()(unsigned int x, unsigned int y)
        {
                if (x >= dimx_ || y>= dimy_)
                        throw std::out_of_range("matrix indices out of range"); // ouch
                return inner_[dimx_*y + x];
        }
};

Note that you would also need to add the const version of the operators, and/or iterators, and the strange use of exceptions, but you get the idea.