Boost C++ Libraries

...one of the most highly regarded and expertly designed C++ library projects in the world. Herb Sutter and Andrei Alexandrescu, C++ Coding Standards

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Boost 1.52.0 Library Documentation

Accumulators

Framework for incremental calculation, and collection of statistical accumulators.

Author(s)
Eric Niebler
First Release
1.36.0
Categories
Math and numerics
Algorithm

A collection of useful generic algorithms.

Author(s)
Marshall Clow
First Release
1.50.0
Categories
Algorithms
Any

Safe, generic container for single values of different value types.

Author(s)
Kevlin Henney
First Release
1.23.0
Categories
Data structures
Array

STL compliant container wrapper for arrays of constant size.

Author(s)
Nicolai Josuttis
First Release
1.17.0
Categories
Containers
Asio

Portable networking, including sockets, timers, hostname resolution and socket iostreams.

Author(s)
Chris Kohlhoff
First Release
1.35.0
Categories
Concurrent Programming, Input/Output
Assign

Filling containers with constant or generated data has never been easier.

Author(s)
Thorsten Ottosen
First Release
1.32.0
Categories
Input/Output
Bimap

Bidirectional maps library for C++. With Boost.Bimap you can create associative containers in which both types can be used as key.

Author(s)
Matias Capeletto
First Release
1.35.0
Categories
Containers, Data structures
Bind

boost::bind is a generalization of the standard functions std::bind1st and std::bind2nd. It supports arbitrary function objects, functions, function pointers, and member function pointers, and is able to bind any argument to a specific value or route input arguments into arbitrary positions.

Author(s)
Peter Dimov
First Release
1.25.0
Categories
Function objects and higher-order programming
Call Traits

Defines types for passing parameters.

Author(s)
John Maddock, Howard Hinnant, et al
First Release
1.13.0
Categories
Generic Programming
Chrono

Useful time utilities.

Author(s)
Vicente J. Botet Escribá
First Release
1.47.0
Categories
Domain Specific, System
Circular Buffer

A STL compliant container also known as ring or cyclic buffer.

Author(s)
Jan Gaspar
First Release
1.35.0
Categories
Containers
Compatibility

Help for non-conforming standard libraries.

Author(s)
Ralf Grosse-Kunstleve and Jens Maurer
First Release
1.21.2
Categories
Broken compiler workarounds
Compressed Pair

Empty member optimization.

Author(s)
John Maddock, Howard Hinnant, et al
First Release
1.13.0
Categories
Data structures, Patterns and Idioms
Concept Check

Tools for generic programming.

Author(s)
Jeremy Siek
First Release
1.19.0
Categories
Correctness and testing, Generic Programming
Config

Helps Boost library developers adapt to compiler idiosyncrasies; not intended for library users.

Author(s)
 
First Release
1.9.0
Categories
Broken compiler workarounds
Container

Standard library containers and extensions.

Author(s)
Ion Gaztañaga
First Release
1.48.0
Categories
Containers, Data structures
Context

Context switching library.

Author(s)
Oliver Kowalke
First Release
1.51.0
Categories
Concurrent Programming, System
Conversion

Polymorphic and lexical casts.

Author(s)
Dave Abrahams and Kevlin Henney
First Release
1.20.0
Categories
Miscellaneous, String and text processing
CRC

The Boost CRC Library provides two implementations of CRC (cyclic redundancy code) computation objects and two implementations of CRC computation functions. The implementations are template-based.

Author(s)
Daryle Walker
First Release
1.22.0
Categories
Domain Specific
Date Time

A set of date-time libraries based on generic programming concepts.

Author(s)
Jeff Garland
First Release
1.29.0
Categories
Domain Specific, System
Dynamic Bitset

The dynamic_bitset class represents a set of bits. It provides accesses to the value of individual bits via an operator[] and provides all of the bitwise operators that one can apply to builtin integers, such as operator& and operator<<. The number of bits in the set is specified at runtime via a parameter to the constructor of the dynamic_bitset.

Author(s)
Jeremy Siek and Chuck Allison
First Release
1.29.0
Categories
Containers
Enable If

Selective inclusion of function template overloads.

Author(s)
Jaakko Järvi, Jeremiah Willcock and Andrew Lumsdaine
First Release
1.31.0
Categories
Generic Programming
Exception

The Boost Exception library supports transporting of arbitrary data in exception objects, and transporting of exceptions between threads.

Author(s)
Emil Dotchevski
First Release
1.36.0
Categories
Language Features Emulation
Filesystem

The Boost Filesystem Library provides portable facilities to query and manipulate paths, files, and directories.

Author(s)
Beman Dawes
First Release
1.30.0
Categories
System
Flyweight

Design pattern to manage large quantities of highly redundant objects.

Author(s)
Joaquín M López Muñoz
First Release
1.38.0
Categories
Patterns and Idioms
Foreach

In C++, writing a loop that iterates over a sequence is tedious. We can either use iterators, which requires a considerable amount of boiler-plate, or we can use the std::for_each() algorithm and move our loop body into a predicate, which requires no less boiler-plate and forces us to move our logic far from where it will be used. In contrast, some other languages, like Perl, provide a dedicated "foreach" construct that automates this process. BOOST_FOREACH is just such a construct for C++. It iterates over sequences for us, freeing us from having to deal directly with iterators or write predicates.

Author(s)
Eric Niebler
First Release
1.34.0
Categories
Algorithms, Language Features Emulation
Format

The format library provides a class for formatting arguments according to a format-string, as does printf, but with two major differences: format sends the arguments to an internal stream, and so is entirely type-safe and naturally supports all user-defined types; the ellipsis (...) can not be used correctly in the strongly typed context of format, and thus the function call with arbitrary arguments is replaced by successive calls to an argument feeding operator%.

Author(s)
Samuel Krempp
First Release
1.29.0
Categories
Input/Output, String and text processing
Function

Function object wrappers for deferred calls or callbacks.

Author(s)
Doug Gregor
First Release
1.23.0
Categories
Function objects and higher-order programming, Programming Interfaces
Function Types

Boost.FunctionTypes provides functionality to classify, decompose and synthesize function, function pointer, function reference and pointer to member types.

Author(s)
Tobias Schwinger
First Release
1.35.0
Categories
Generic Programming, Template Metaprogramming
Functional

The Boost.Function library contains a family of class templates that are function object wrappers.

Author(s)
Mark Rodgers
First Release
1.16.0
Categories
Function objects and higher-order programming
Functional/Factory

Function object templates for dynamic and static object creation

Author(s)
Tobias Schwinger
First Release
1.43.0
Categories
Function objects and higher-order programming
Functional/Forward

Adapters to allow generic function objects to accept arbitrary arguments

Author(s)
Tobias Schwinger
First Release
1.43.0
Categories
Function objects and higher-order programming
Functional/Hash

A TR1 hash function object that can be extended to hash user defined types.

Author(s)
Daniel James
First Release
1.33.0
Categories
Function objects and higher-order programming
Functional/Overloaded Function

Overload different functions into a single function object.

Author(s)
Lorenzo Caminiti
First Release
1.50.0
Categories
Function objects and higher-order programming
Fusion

Library for working with tuples, including various containers, algorithms, etc.

Author(s)
Joel de Guzman, Dan Marsden and Tobias Schwinger
First Release
1.35.0
Categories
Data structures, Template Metaprogramming
Geometry

Geometry Library.

Author(s)
Barend Gehrels, Bruno Lalande and Mateusz Loskot
First Release
1.47.0
Categories
Algorithms, Math and numerics
GIL

Generic Image Library

Author(s)
Lubomir Bourdev and Hailin Jin
First Release
1.35.0
Categories
Algorithms, Containers, Generic Programming, Image processing, Iterators
Graph

The BGL graph interface and graph components are generic, in the same sense as the the Standard Template Library (STL).

Author(s)
Jeremy Siek and a University of Notre Dame team; now maintained by Andrew Sutton and Jeremiah Willcock.
First Release
1.18.0
Categories
Algorithms, Containers, Iterators
GraphParallel

The PBGL graph interface and graph components are generic, in the same sense as the the Standard Template Library (STL).

Author(s)
Jeremy Siek, Doug Gregor, and a University of Notre Dame team.
First Release
1.40.0
Categories
Algorithms, Containers, Iterators
Heap

Priority queue data structures.

Author(s)
Tim Blechmann
First Release
1.49.0
Categories
Data structures
ICL

Interval Container Library, interval sets and maps and aggregation of associated values

Author(s)
Joachim Faulhaber
First Release
1.46.0
Categories
Containers, Data structures
Identity Type

Wrap types within round parenthesis so they can always be passed as macro parameters.

Author(s)
Lorenzo Caminiti
First Release
1.50.0
Categories
Preprocessor Metaprogramming
In Place Factory, Typed In Place Factory

Generic in-place construction of contained objects with a variadic argument-list.

Author(s)
Fernando Cacciola
First Release
1.32.0
Categories
Generic Programming
Integer

The organization of boost integer headers and classes is designed to take advantage of <stdint.h> types from the 1999 C standard without resorting to undefined behavior in terms of the 1998 C++ standard. The header <boost/cstdint.hpp> makes the standard integer types safely available in namespace boost without placing any names in namespace std.

Author(s)
 
First Release
1.9.0
Categories
Math and numerics
Interprocess

Shared memory, memory mapped files, process-shared mutexes, condition variables, containers and allocators.

Author(s)
Ion Gaztañaga
First Release
1.35.0
Categories
Concurrent Programming
Interval

Extends the usual arithmetic functions to mathematical intervals.

Author(s)
Guillaume Melquiond, Hervé Brönnimann and Sylvain Pion
First Release
1.30.0
Categories
Math and numerics
Intrusive

Intrusive containers and algorithms.

Author(s)
Ion Gaztañaga
First Release
1.35.0
Categories
Containers
IO State Savers

The I/O sub-library of Boost helps segregate the large number of Boost headers. This sub-library should contain various items to use with/for the standard I/O library.

Author(s)
Daryle Walker
First Release
1.28.0
Categories
Input/Output
Iostreams

Boost.IOStreams provides a framework for defining streams, stream buffers and i/o filters.

Author(s)
Jonathan Turkanis
First Release
1.33.0
Categories
Input/Output, String and text processing
Iterator

The Boost Iterator Library contains two parts. The first is a system of concepts which extend the C++ standard iterator requirements. The second is a framework of components for building iterators based on these extended concepts and includes several useful iterator adaptors.

Author(s)
Dave Abrahams, Jeremy Siek and Thomas Witt
First Release
1.21.0
Categories
Iterators
Lambda

Define small unnamed function objects at the actual call site, and more.

Author(s)
Jaakko Järvi and Gary Powell
First Release
1.28.0
Categories
Function objects and higher-order programming
Lexical Cast

General literal text conversions, such as an int represented a string, or vice-versa.

Author(s)
Kevlin Henney
First Release
1.20.0
Categories
Miscellaneous, String and text processing
Local Function

Program functions locally, within other functions, directly within the scope where they are needed.

Author(s)
Lorenzo Caminiti
First Release
1.50.0
Categories
Function objects and higher-order programming
Locale

Provide localization and Unicode handling tools for C++.

Author(s)
Artyom Beilis
First Release
1.48.0
Categories
String and text processing
Math

Boost.Math includes several contributions in the domain of mathematics: The Greatest Common Divisor and Least Common Multiple library provides run-time and compile-time evaluation of the greatest common divisor (GCD) or least common multiple (LCM) of two integers. The Special Functions library currently provides eight templated special functions, in namespace boost. The Complex Number Inverse Trigonometric Functions are the inverses of trigonometric functions currently present in the C++ standard. Quaternions are a relative of complex numbers often used to parameterise rotations in three dimentional space. Octonions, like quaternions, are a relative of complex numbers.

Author(s)
various
First Release
1.23.0
Categories
Math and numerics
Math Common Factor

Greatest common divisor and least common multiple.

Author(s)
Daryle Walker
First Release
1.26.0
Categories
Math and numerics
Math Octonion

Octonions.

Author(s)
Hubert Holin
First Release
1.23.0
Categories
Math and numerics
Math Quaternion

Quaternions.

Author(s)
Hubert Holin
First Release
1.23.0
Categories
Math and numerics
Math/Special Functions

A wide selection of mathematical special functions.

Author(s)
John Maddock, Paul Bristow, Hubert Holin and Xiaogang Zhang
First Release
1.35.0
Categories
Math and numerics
Math/Statistical Distributions

A wide selection of univariate statistical distributions and functions that operate on them.

Author(s)
John Maddock and Paul Bristow
First Release
1.35.0
Categories
Math and numerics
Member Function

Generalized binders for function/object/pointers and member functions.

Author(s)
Peter Dimov
First Release
1.25.0
Categories
Function objects and higher-order programming
Meta State Machine

A very high-performance library for expressive UML2 finite state machines.

Author(s)
Christophe Henry
First Release
1.44.0
Categories
State Machines
Min-Max

Standard library extensions for simultaneous min/max and min/max element computations.

Author(s)
Hervé Brönnimann
First Release
1.32.0
Categories
Algorithms
Move

Portable move semantics for C++03 and C++11 compilers.

Author(s)
Ion Gaztañaga
First Release
1.48.0
Categories
Language Features Emulation
MPI

Message Passing Interface library, for use in distributed-memory parallel application programming.

Author(s)
Douglas Gregor and Matthias Troyer
First Release
1.35.0
Categories
Concurrent Programming
MPL

The Boost.MPL library is a general-purpose, high-level C++ template metaprogramming framework of compile-time algorithms, sequences and metafunctions. It provides a conceptual foundation and an extensive set of powerful and coherent tools that make doing explict metaprogramming in C++ as easy and enjoyable as possible within the current language.

Author(s)
Aleksey Gurtovoy
First Release
1.30.0
Categories
Template Metaprogramming
Multi-Array

Boost.MultiArray provides a generic N-dimensional array concept definition and common implementations of that interface.

Author(s)
Ron Garcia
First Release
1.29.0
Categories
Containers, Math and numerics
Multi-Index

The Boost Multi-index Containers Library provides a class template named multi_index_container which enables the construction of containers maintaining one or more indices with different sorting and access semantics.

Author(s)
Joaquín M López Muñoz
First Release
1.32.0
Categories
Containers, Data structures
Numeric Conversion

Optimized Policy-based Numeric Conversions.

Author(s)
Fernando Cacciola
First Release
1.32.0
Categories
Math and numerics, Miscellaneous
Operators

Templates ease arithmetic classes and iterators.

Author(s)
Dave Abrahams and Jeremy Siek
First Release
1.9.0
Categories
Generic Programming, Iterators, Math and numerics
Optional

Discriminated-union wrapper for optional values.

Author(s)
Fernando Cacciola
First Release
1.30.0
Categories
Miscellaneous
Parameter

Boost.Parameter Library - Write functions that accept arguments by name.

Author(s)
David Abrahams and Daniel Wallin
First Release
1.33.0
Categories
Language Features Emulation, Programming Interfaces
Phoenix

Define small unnamed function objects at the actual call site, and more.

Author(s)
Joel de Guzman, Dan Marsden and Thomas Heller
First Release
1.47.0
Categories
Function objects and higher-order programming
Pointer Container

Containers for storing heap-allocated polymorphic objects to ease OO-programming.

Author(s)
Thorsten Ottosen
First Release
1.33.0
Categories
Containers, Data structures
Polygon

Booleans/clipping, resizing/offsetting and more for planar polygons with integral coordinates.

Author(s)
Lucanus Simonson
First Release
1.44.0
Categories
Miscellaneous
Pool

Memory pool management.

Author(s)
Steve Cleary
First Release
1.21.0
Categories
Memory
Preprocessor

Preprocessor metaprogramming tools including repetition and recursion.

Author(s)
Vesa Karvonen and Paul Mensonides
First Release
1.26.0
Categories
Preprocessor Metaprogramming
Program Options

The program_options library allows program developers to obtain program options, that is (name, value) pairs from the user, via conventional methods such as command line and config file.

Author(s)
Vladimir Prus
First Release
1.32.0
Categories
Input/Output, Miscellaneous
Property Map

Concepts defining interfaces which map key objects to value objects.

Author(s)
Jeremy Siek
First Release
1.19.0
Categories
Containers, Generic Programming
Property Tree

A tree data structure especially suited to storing configuration data.

Author(s)
Marcin Kalicinski and Sebastian Redl
First Release
1.41.0
Categories
Containers, Data structures
Proto

Expression template library and compiler construction toolkit for domain-specific embedded languages.

Author(s)
Eric Niebler
First Release
1.37.0
Categories
Template Metaprogramming
Python

The Boost Python Library is a framework for interfacing Python and C++. It allows you to quickly and seamlessly expose C++ classes functions and objects to Python, and vice-versa, using no special tools -- just your C++ compiler.

Author(s)
Dave Abrahams
First Release
1.19.0
Categories
Inter-language support
Random

A complete system for random number generation.

Author(s)
Jens Maurer
First Release
1.15.0
Categories
Math and numerics
Range

A new infrastructure for generic algorithms that builds on top of the new iterator concepts.

Author(s)
Niel Groves and Thorsten Ottosen
First Release
1.32.0
Categories
Algorithms
Ratio

Compile time rational arithmetic.

Author(s)
Vicente J. Botet Escribá
First Release
1.47.0
Categories
Math and numerics
Rational

A rational number class.

Author(s)
Paul Moore
First Release
1.11.0
Categories
Math and numerics
Ref

A utility library for passing references to generic functions.

Author(s)
Jaako Järvi, Peter Dimov, Doug Gregor and Dave Abrahams
First Release
1.25.0
Categories
Function objects and higher-order programming
Regex

Regular expression library.

Author(s)
John Maddock
First Release
1.18.0
Categories
String and text processing
Result Of

Determines the type of a function call expression.

Author(s)
 
First Release
1.32.0
Categories
Function objects and higher-order programming
Scope Exit

Execute arbitrary code at scope exit.

Author(s)
Alexander Nasonov
First Release
1.38.0
Categories
Language Features Emulation
Serialization

Serialization for persistence and marshalling.

Author(s)
Robert Ramey
First Release
1.32.0
Categories
Input/Output
Signals

Managed signals & slots callback implementation.

Author(s)
Doug Gregor
First Release
1.29.0
Categories
Function objects and higher-order programming, Patterns and Idioms
Signals2

Managed signals & slots callback implementation (thread-safe version 2).

Author(s)
Frank Mori Hess
First Release
1.39.0
Categories
Function objects and higher-order programming, Patterns and Idioms
Smart Ptr

Smart pointer class templates.

Author(s)
Greg Colvin, Beman Dawes, Peter Dimov, Darin Adler and Glen Fernandes
First Release
1.23.0
Categories
Memory
Spirit

LL parser framework represents parsers directly as EBNF grammars in inlined C++.

Author(s)
Joel de Guzman, Hartmut Kaiser and Dan Nuffer
First Release
1.30.0
Categories
Parsing, String and text processing
Statechart

Boost.Statechart - Arbitrarily complex finite state machines can be implemented in easily readable and maintainable C++ code.

Author(s)
Andreas Huber Dönni
First Release
1.34.0
Categories
State Machines
Static Assert

Static assertions (compile time assertions).

Author(s)
John Maddock
First Release
1.19.0
Categories
Correctness and testing, Generic Programming, Template Metaprogramming
String Algo

String algorithms library.

Author(s)
Pavol Droba
First Release
1.32.0
Categories
Algorithms, String and text processing
Swap

Enhanced generic swap function.

Author(s)
Joseph Gauterin
First Release
1.38.0
Categories
Miscellaneous
System

Operating system support, including the diagnostics support that will be part of the C++0x standard library.

Author(s)
Beman Dawes
First Release
1.35.0
Categories
System
Test

Support for simple program testing, full unit testing, and for program execution monitoring.

Author(s)
Gennadiy Rozental
First Release
1.21.0
Categories
Correctness and testing
Thread

Portable C++ multi-threading.

Author(s)
Vicente J. Botet Escribá, Anthony Williams (originally William Kempf)
First Release
1.25.0
Categories
Concurrent Programming, System
Timer

Event timer, progress timer, and progress display classes.

Author(s)
Beman Dawes
First Release
1.9.0
Categories
Miscellaneous
Tokenizer

Break of a string or other character sequence into a series of tokens.

Author(s)
John Bandela
First Release
1.23.0
Categories
Iterators, String and text processing
TR1

The TR1 library provides an implementation of the C++ Technical Report on Standard Library Extensions. This library does not itself implement the TR1 components, rather it's a thin wrapper that will include your standard library's TR1 implementation (if it has one), otherwise it will include the Boost Library equivalents, and import them into namespace std::tr1.

Author(s)
John Maddock
First Release
1.34.0
Categories
Miscellaneous
Tribool

3-state boolean type library.

Author(s)
Doug Gregor
First Release
1.32.0
Categories
Miscellaneous
Tuple

Ease definition of functions returning multiple values, and more.

Author(s)
Jaakko Järvi
First Release
1.24.0
Categories
Data structures
Type Traits

Templates for fundamental properties of types.

Author(s)
John Maddock, Steve Cleary, et al
First Release
1.13.0
Categories
Generic Programming, Template Metaprogramming
Typeof

Typeof operator emulation.

Author(s)
Arkadiy Vertleyb and Peder Holt
First Release
1.34.0
Categories
Language Features Emulation
uBLAS

uBLAS provides matrix and vector classes as well as basic linear algebra routines. Several dense, packed and sparse storage schemes are supported.

Author(s)
Joerg Walter and Mathias Koch
First Release
1.29.0
Categories
Math and numerics
Units

Zero-overhead dimensional analysis and unit/quantity manipulation and conversion.

Author(s)
Matthias Schabel and Steven Watanabe
First Release
1.36.0
Categories
Domain Specific
Unordered

Unordered associative containers.

Author(s)
Daniel James
First Release
1.36.0
Categories
Containers
Utility

Class noncopyable plus checked_delete(), checked_array_delete(), next(), prior() function templates, plus base-from-member idiom.

Author(s)
Dave Abrahams and others
First Release
1.13.0
Categories
Algorithms, Function objects and higher-order programming, Memory, Miscellaneous, Patterns and Idioms
Uuid

A universally unique identifier.

Author(s)
Andy Tompkins
First Release
1.42.0
Categories
Data structures, Domain Specific
Value Initialized

Wrapper for uniform-syntax value initialization, based on the original idea of David Abrahams.

Author(s)
Fernando Cacciola
First Release
1.9.0
Categories
Miscellaneous
Variant

Safe, generic, stack-based discriminated union container.

Author(s)
Eric Friedman and Itay Maman
First Release
1.31.0
Categories
Containers, Data structures
Wave

The Boost.Wave library is a Standards conformant, and highly configurable implementation of the mandated C99/C++ preprocessor functionality packed behind an easy to use iterator interface.

Author(s)
Hartmut Kaiser
First Release
1.33.0
Categories
String and text processing
Xpressive

Regular expressions that can be written as strings or as expression templates, and which can refer to each other and themselves recursively with the power of context-free grammars.

Author(s)
Eric Niebler
First Release
1.34.0
Categories
String and text processing