C++ Library Overview

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C++ Library Overview

Using Standard C++ Headers | C++ Library Conventions | Iostreams Conventions | Program Startup and Termination****

All Standard C++ library entities are declared or defined in one or more standard headers. To use a library entity in a program, write an include directive that names the relevant standard header. The full set of Standard C++ headers (along with the 18 additional Standard C headers) constitutes a hosted implementation of Standard C++: <algorithm>, <bitset>, <cassert>, <cctype>, <cerrno>, <cfloat>, <ciso646>, <climits>, <clocale>, <cmath>, <complex>, <csetjmp>, <csignal>, <cstdarg>, <cstddef>, <cstdio>, <cstdlib>, <cstring>, <ctime>, <cwchar>, <cwctype>, <deque>, <exception>, <fstream>, <functional>, <iomanip>, <ios>, <iosfwd>, <iostream>, <istream>, <iterator>, <limits>, <list>, <locale>, <map>, <memory>, <numeric>, <ostream>, <queue>, <set>, <sstream>, <stack>, <stdexcept>, <streambuf>, <string>, <strstream>, <utility>, <valarray>, and <vector>.

A freestanding implementation of Standard C++ provides only a subset of these headers: <cstddef>, <cstdlib> (declaring at least the functions abort, atexit, and exit), <exception>, <limits>, and <cstdarg>.

The Standard C++ headers have two broader subdivisions, iostreams headers and STL headers.