Standard C++ Library Overview

All C++ library entities are declared or defined in one or more standard headers. To make use of a library entity in a program, write an include directive that names the relevant standard header. The Standard C++ Library consists of 50 required headers. This implementation also includes two additional headers, <hash_map> and <hash_set>, that are not required by the C++ Standard, for a total of 52 headers. These 52 C++ library headers (with the additional 18 Standard C headers) constitute a hosted implementation of the C++ library.

A freestanding implementation of the C++ library provides only a subset of these headers:

The C++ library headers have two broader subdivisions:

• iostreams conventions.
• Standard Template Library conventions.

This section contains the following sections:

• Using C++ Library Headers
• C++ Library Conventions
• iostreams Conventions
• C++ Program Startup and Termination

See Also

Standard C++ Library Reference | Thread Safety in the Standard C++ Library