Boost C++ Libraries

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Boost 1.76.0 Library Documentation

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String and text processing

  • Lexical Cast: General literal text conversions, such as an int represented a string, or vice-versa.
  • Spirit: LL parser framework represents parsers directly as EBNF grammars in inlined C++.
  • Spirit Classic: LL parser framework represents parsers directly as EBNF grammars in inlined C++.
  • Spirit Repository: The Spirit repository is a community effort collecting different reusable components (primitives, directives, grammars, etc.) for Qi parsers and Karma generators.
  • String Algo: String algorithms library.
  • Regex: Regular expression library.
  • Static String: A fixed capacity dynamically sized string.
  • Convert: An extendible and configurable type-conversion framework.
  • Format: The format library provides a type-safe mechanism for formatting arguments according to a printf-like format-string.
  • Iostreams: Boost.IOStreams provides a framework for defining streams, stream buffers and i/o filters.
  • Locale: Provide localization and Unicode handling tools for C++.
  • Tokenizer: Break of a string or other character sequence into a series of tokens.
  • 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.
  • 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.

Containers

  • 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.
  • Property Tree: A tree data structure especially suited to storing configuration data.
  • String_ref: String view templates.
  • Variant: Safe, generic, stack-based discriminated union container.
  • JSON: JSON parsing, serialization, and DOM in C++11
  • PolyCollection: Fast containers of polymorphic objects.
  • Variant2: A never-valueless, strong guarantee implementation of std::variant.
  • Array: STL compliant container wrapper for arrays of constant size.
  • Bimap: Bidirectional maps library for C++. With Boost.Bimap you can create associative containers in which both types can be used as key.
  • Circular Buffer: A STL compliant container also known as ring or cyclic buffer.
  • Container: Standard library containers and extensions.
  • 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.
  • GIL: (C++11) Generic Image Library
  • Graph: The BGL graph interface and graph components are generic, in the same sense as the Standard Template Library (STL).
  • GraphParallel: The PBGL graph interface and graph components are generic, in the same sense as the the Standard Template Library (STL).
  • ICL: Interval Container Library, interval sets and maps and aggregation of associated values
  • Intrusive: Intrusive containers and algorithms.
  • Multi-Array: Boost.MultiArray provides a generic N-dimensional array concept definition and common implementations of that interface.
  • Pointer Container: Containers for storing heap-allocated polymorphic objects to ease OO-programming.
  • Property Map: Concepts defining interfaces which map key objects to value objects.
  • Unordered: Unordered associative containers.

Iterators

  • 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.
  • Operators: Templates ease arithmetic classes and iterators.
  • GIL: (C++11) Generic Image Library
  • Graph: The BGL graph interface and graph components are generic, in the same sense as the Standard Template Library (STL).
  • GraphParallel: The PBGL graph interface and graph components are generic, in the same sense as the the Standard Template Library (STL).
  • Tokenizer: Break of a string or other character sequence into a series of tokens.

Algorithms

  • Algorithm: A collection of useful generic algorithms.
  • Min-Max: Standard library extensions for simultaneous min/max and min/max element computations.
  • QVM: Generic {CPP} library for working with Quaternions Vectors and Matrices.
  • Sort: High-performance templated sort functions.
  • String Algo: String algorithms library.
  • Utility: Class noncopyable plus checked_delete(), checked_array_delete(), next(), prior() function templates, plus base-from-member idiom.
  • Geometry: The Boost.Geometry library provides geometric algorithms, primitives and spatial index.
  • Histogram: Fast multi-dimensional histogram with convenient interface for C++14
  • 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.
  • GIL: (C++11) Generic Image Library
  • Graph: The BGL graph interface and graph components are generic, in the same sense as the Standard Template Library (STL).
  • GraphParallel: The PBGL graph interface and graph components are generic, in the same sense as the the Standard Template Library (STL).
  • Polygon: Voronoi diagram construction and booleans/clipping, resizing/offsetting and more for planar polygons with integral coordinates.
  • Range: A new infrastructure for generic algorithms that builds on top of the new iterator concepts.

Function objects and higher-order programming

  • 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.
  • Function: Function object wrappers for deferred calls or callbacks.
  • Member Function: Generalized binders for function/object/pointers and member functions.
  • Phoenix: Define small unnamed function objects at the actual call site, and more.
  • Ref: A utility library for passing references to generic functions.
  • Result Of: Determines the type of a function call expression.
  • Signals2: Managed signals & slots callback implementation (thread-safe version 2).
  • Utility: Class noncopyable plus checked_delete(), checked_array_delete(), next(), prior() function templates, plus base-from-member idiom.
  • Container Hash: An STL-compatible hash function object that can be extended to hash user defined types.
  • Functional: The Boost.Function library contains a family of class templates that are function object wrappers.
  • Functional/Factory: Function object templates for dynamic and static object creation
  • Functional/Forward: Adapters to allow generic function objects to accept arbitrary arguments
  • Functional/Overloaded Function: Overload different functions into a single function object.
  • HOF: Higher-order functions for C++
  • Lambda: Define small unnamed function objects at the actual call site, and more.
  • Local Function: Program functions locally, within other functions, directly within the scope where they are needed.

Generic Programming

  • Call Traits: Defines types for passing parameters.
  • Concept Check: Tools for generic programming.
  • Enable If: Selective inclusion of function template overloads.
  • Function Types: Boost.FunctionTypes provides functionality to classify, decompose and synthesize function, function pointer, function reference and pointer to member types.
  • In Place Factory, Typed In Place Factory: Generic in-place construction of contained objects with a variadic argument-list.
  • Operators: Templates ease arithmetic classes and iterators.
  • QVM: Generic {CPP} library for working with Quaternions Vectors and Matrices.
  • TTI: Type Traits Introspection library.
  • GIL: (C++11) Generic Image Library
  • Property Map: Concepts defining interfaces which map key objects to value objects.
  • Static Assert: Static assertions (compile time assertions).
  • Stl_interfaces: C++14 and later CRTP templates for defining iterators, views, and containers.
  • Type Traits: Templates for fundamental properties of types.
  • YAP: An expression template library for C++14 and later.

Template Metaprogramming

  • Function Types: Boost.FunctionTypes provides functionality to classify, decompose and synthesize function, function pointer, function reference and pointer to member types.
  • Fusion: Library for working with tuples, including various containers, algorithms, etc.
  • 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.
  • TTI: Type Traits Introspection library.
  • Mp11: A C++11 metaprogramming library.
  • PFR: Basic reflection for user defined types.
  • CallableTraits: A spiritual successor to Boost.FunctionTypes, Boost.CallableTraits is a header-only C++11 library for the compile-time inspection and manipulation of all 'callable' types. Additional support for C++17 features.
  • Hana: A modern C++ metaprogramming library. It provides high level algorithms to manipulate heterogeneous sequences, allows writing type-level computations with a natural syntax, provides tools to introspect user-defined types and much more.
  • HOF: Higher-order functions for C++
  • Metaparse: A library for generating compile time parsers parsing embedded DSL code as part of the C++ compilation process
  • Proto: Expression template library and compiler construction toolkit for domain-specific embedded languages.
  • Static Assert: Static assertions (compile time assertions).
  • Type Traits: Templates for fundamental properties of types.
  • YAP: An expression template library for C++14 and later.

Preprocessor Metaprogramming

  • Identity Type: Wrap types within round parenthesis so they can always be passed as macro parameters.
  • Preprocessor: Preprocessor metaprogramming tools including repetition and recursion.
  • VMD: Variadic Macro Data library.

Concurrent Programming

  • Asio: Portable networking and other low-level I/O, including sockets, timers, hostname resolution, socket iostreams, serial ports, file descriptors and Windows HANDLEs.
  • Atomic: C++11-style atomic<>.
  • Interprocess: Shared memory, memory mapped files, process-shared mutexes, condition variables, containers and allocators.
  • Beast: Portable HTTP, WebSocket, and network operations using only C++11 and Boost.Asio
  • Context: (C++11) Context switching library.
  • Coroutine2: (C++11) Coroutine library.
  • Fiber: (C++11) Userland threads library.
  • Compute: Parallel/GPU-computing library
  • Coroutine (deprecated): Coroutine library.
  • Lockfree: Lockfree data structures.
  • MPI: Message Passing Interface library, for use in distributed-memory parallel application programming.
  • Thread: Portable C++ multi-threading. C++03, C++11, C++14, C++17.

Math and numerics

  • Endian: Types and conversion functions for correct byte ordering and more regardless of processor endianness.
  • 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.
  • Operators: Templates ease arithmetic classes and iterators.
  • QVM: Generic {CPP} library for working with Quaternions Vectors and Matrices.
  • Random: A complete system for random number generation.
  • 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.
  • Math Common Factor: Greatest common divisor and least common multiple.
  • Math Octonion: Octonions.
  • Math Quaternion: Quaternions.
  • Math/Special Functions: A wide selection of mathematical special functions.
  • Math/Statistical Distributions: A wide selection of univariate statistical distributions and functions that operate on them.
  • Multiprecision: Extended precision arithmetic types for floating point, integer andrational arithmetic.
  • Geometry: The Boost.Geometry library provides geometric algorithms, primitives and spatial index.
  • Histogram: Fast multi-dimensional histogram with convenient interface for C++14
  • Safe Numerics: Guaranteed Correct Integer Arithmetic
  • Accumulators: Framework for incremental calculation, and collection of statistical accumulators.
  • Interval: Extends the usual arithmetic functions to mathematical intervals.
  • Multi-Array: Boost.MultiArray provides a generic N-dimensional array concept definition and common implementations of that interface.
  • Numeric Conversion: Optimized Policy-based Numeric Conversions.
  • Odeint: Solving ordinary differential equations.
  • Polygon: Voronoi diagram construction and booleans/clipping, resizing/offsetting and more for planar polygons with integral coordinates.
  • Ratio: Compile time rational arithmetic. C++11.
  • Rational: A rational number class.
  • uBLAS: uBLAS provides tensor, matrix, and vector classes as well as basic linear algebra routines. Several dense, packed and sparse storage schemes are supported.

Correctness and testing

  • Assert: Customizable assert macros.
  • Concept Check: Tools for generic programming.
  • Safe Numerics: Guaranteed Correct Integer Arithmetic
  • Contract: Contract programming for C++. All contract programming features are supported: Subcontracting, class invariants, postconditions (with old and return values), preconditions, customizable actions on assertion failure (e.g., terminate or throw), optional compilation and checking of assertions, etc.
  • Stacktrace: Gather, store, copy and print backtraces.
  • Static Assert: Static assertions (compile time assertions).
  • Test: Support for simple program testing, full unit testing, and for program execution monitoring.

Data structures

  • Any: Safe, generic container for single values of different value types.
  • Compressed Pair: Empty member optimization.
  • Fusion: Library for working with tuples, including various containers, algorithms, etc.
  • 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.
  • Optional: A value-semantic, type-safe wrapper for representing 'optional' (or 'nullable') objects of a given type. An optional object may or may not contain a value of the underlying type.
  • Property Tree: A tree data structure especially suited to storing configuration data.
  • Variant: Safe, generic, stack-based discriminated union container.
  • JSON: JSON parsing, serialization, and DOM in C++11
  • Variant2: A never-valueless, strong guarantee implementation of std::variant.
  • Geometry: The Boost.Geometry library provides geometric algorithms, primitives and spatial index.
  • Histogram: Fast multi-dimensional histogram with convenient interface for C++14
  • PFR: Basic reflection for user defined types.
  • Bimap: Bidirectional maps library for C++. With Boost.Bimap you can create associative containers in which both types can be used as key.
  • Container: Standard library containers and extensions.
  • Heap: Priority queue data structures.
  • ICL: Interval Container Library, interval sets and maps and aggregation of associated values
  • Pointer Container: Containers for storing heap-allocated polymorphic objects to ease OO-programming.
  • Polygon: Voronoi diagram construction and booleans/clipping, resizing/offsetting and more for planar polygons with integral coordinates.
  • Tuple: Ease definition of functions returning multiple values, and more.
  • Type Erasure: Runtime polymorphism based on concepts.
  • Uuid: A universally unique identifier.

Domain Specific

  • Date Time: A set of date-time libraries based on generic programming concepts.
  • Chrono: Useful time utilities. C++11.
  • 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.
  • Units: Zero-overhead dimensional analysis and unit/quantity manipulation and conversion.
  • Uuid: A universally unique identifier.

Image processing

  • GIL: (C++11) Generic Image Library

Input/Output

  • Asio: Portable networking and other low-level I/O, including sockets, timers, hostname resolution, socket iostreams, serial ports, file descriptors and Windows HANDLEs.
  • Endian: Types and conversion functions for correct byte ordering and more regardless of processor endianness.
  • IO: Utilities for the standard I/O library.
  • Serialization: Serialization for persistence and marshalling.
  • Beast: Portable HTTP, WebSocket, and network operations using only C++11 and Boost.Asio
  • JSON: JSON parsing, serialization, and DOM in C++11
  • Assign: Filling containers with constant or generated data has never been easier.
  • Format: The format library provides a type-safe mechanism for formatting arguments according to a printf-like format-string.
  • Iostreams: Boost.IOStreams provides a framework for defining streams, stream buffers and i/o filters.
  • 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.

Inter-language support

  • 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.

Language Features Emulation

  • Exception: The Boost Exception library supports transporting of arbitrary data in exception objects, and transporting of exceptions between threads.
  • Parameter: Boost.Parameter Library - Write functions that accept arguments by name.
  • Type Index: Runtime/Compile time copyable type info.
  • Outcome: A deterministic failure handling library partially simulating lightweight exceptions.
  • 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.
  • Move: Portable move semantics for C++03 and C++11 compilers.
  • Parameter Python Bindings: Boost.Parameter Library Python bindings.
  • Scope Exit: Execute arbitrary code at scope exit.
  • Typeof: Typeof operator emulation.

Memory

  • Smart Ptr: Smart pointer class templates.
  • Utility: Class noncopyable plus checked_delete(), checked_array_delete(), next(), prior() function templates, plus base-from-member idiom.
  • Align: Memory alignment functions, allocators, traits.
  • Pool: Memory pool management.

Parsing

  • Spirit: LL parser framework represents parsers directly as EBNF grammars in inlined C++.
  • Spirit Classic: LL parser framework represents parsers directly as EBNF grammars in inlined C++.
  • Spirit Repository: The Spirit repository is a community effort collecting different reusable components (primitives, directives, grammars, etc.) for Qi parsers and Karma generators.

Patterns and Idioms

  • Compressed Pair: Empty member optimization.
  • Flyweight: Design pattern to manage large quantities of highly redundant objects.
  • Signals2: Managed signals & slots callback implementation (thread-safe version 2).
  • Utility: Class noncopyable plus checked_delete(), checked_array_delete(), next(), prior() function templates, plus base-from-member idiom.
  • Outcome: A deterministic failure handling library partially simulating lightweight exceptions.

Programming Interfaces

  • Function: Function object wrappers for deferred calls or callbacks.
  • Parameter: Boost.Parameter Library - Write functions that accept arguments by name.
  • Outcome: A deterministic failure handling library partially simulating lightweight exceptions.
  • Parameter Python Bindings: Boost.Parameter Library Python bindings.

State Machines

  • Meta State Machine: A very high-performance library for expressive UML2 finite state machines.
  • Statechart: Boost.Statechart - Arbitrarily complex finite state machines can be implemented in easily readable and maintainable C++ code.

System

  • Date Time: A set of date-time libraries based on generic programming concepts.
  • DLL: Library for comfortable work with DLL and DSO.
  • Filesystem: The Boost Filesystem Library provides portable facilities to query and manipulate paths, files, and directories.
  • System: Operating system support, including the diagnostics support that will be part of the C++0x standard library.
  • Context: (C++11) Context switching library.
  • Fiber: (C++11) Userland threads library.
  • Nowide: Standard library functions with UTF-8 API on Windows.
  • Chrono: Useful time utilities. C++11.
  • Process: Library to create processes in a portable way.
  • Stacktrace: Gather, store, copy and print backtraces.
  • Thread: Portable C++ multi-threading. C++03, C++11, C++14, C++17.

Miscellaneous

  • Conversion: Polymorphic casts.
  • Core: A collection of simple core utilities with minimal dependencies.
  • Endian: Types and conversion functions for correct byte ordering and more regardless of processor endianness.
  • Lexical Cast: General literal text conversions, such as an int represented a string, or vice-versa.
  • Log: Logging library.
  • Swap: Enhanced generic swap function.
  • ThrowException: A common infrastructure for throwing exceptions from Boost libraries.
  • Timer: Event timer, progress timer, and progress display classes.
  • Utility: Class noncopyable plus checked_delete(), checked_array_delete(), next(), prior() function templates, plus base-from-member idiom.
  • Value Initialized: Wrapper for uniform-syntax value initialization, based on the original idea of David Abrahams.
  • LEAF: A lightweight error-handling library for C++11.
  • Predef: This library defines a set of compiler, architecture, operating system, library, and other version numbers from the information it can gather of C, C++, Objective C, and Objective C++ predefined macros or those defined in generally available headers.
  • Convert: An extendible and configurable type-conversion framework.
  • Numeric Conversion: Optimized Policy-based Numeric Conversions.
  • 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.
  • Tribool: 3-state boolean type library.

Broken compiler workarounds

  • Config: Helps Boost library developers adapt to compiler idiosyncrasies; not intended for library users.
  • Compatibility: Help for non-conforming standard libraries.