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

This is the documentation for a snapshot of the develop branch, built from commit 65ab21cc6f.

Boost Develop Library Documentation

Sort by:

By Category

String and text processing

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • String View: String view templates.
  • Tokenizer: Break of a string or other character sequence into a series of tokens.
  • CharConv: An implementation of <charconv> in C++11.
  • Convert: An extendible and configurable type-conversion framework.
  • Lexical Cast: General literal text conversions, such as an int represented a string, or vice-versa.
  • Locale: Provide localization and Unicode handling tools for C++.
  • Regex: Regular expression library.
  • Static String: A fixed capacity dynamically sized string.
  • 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

  • Array: STL compliant container wrapper for arrays of constant size.
  • 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.
  • 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 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Property Map (Parallel): Parallel extensions to Property Map for use with Parallel Graph.
  • String Ref: String view templates.
  • String View: String view templates.
  • JSON: JSON parsing, serialization, and DOM in C++11
  • PolyCollection: Fast containers of polymorphic objects.
  • Property Tree: A tree data structure especially suited to storing configuration data.
  • Unordered: Unordered associative containers.
  • URL: URL parsing in C++11
  • Variant: Safe, generic, stack-based discriminated union container.
  • Variant2: A never-valueless, strong guarantee implementation of std::variant.
  • GIL: (C++14) Generic Image Library
  • Bimap: Bidirectional maps library for C++. With Boost.Bimap you can create associative containers in which both types can be used as key.

Iterators

  • 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 Standard Template Library (STL).
  • 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 to simplify operator definition in arithmetic classes and iterators.
  • Tokenizer: Break of a string or other character sequence into a series of tokens.
  • GIL: (C++14) Generic Image Library

Algorithms

  • Algorithm: A collection of useful generic algorithms.
  • 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 Standard Template Library (STL).
  • Min-Max: Standard library extensions for simultaneous min/max and min/max element computations.
  • QVM: Generic C++ library for working with Quaternions Vectors and Matrices.
  • Range: A new infrastructure for generic algorithms that builds on top of the new iterator concepts.
  • Sort: High-performance templated sort functions.
  • String Algo: String algorithms library.
  • Geometry: The Boost.Geometry library provides geometric algorithms, primitives and spatial index.
  • GIL: (C++14) Generic Image Library
  • 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.
  • Polygon: Voronoi diagram construction and booleans/clipping, resizing/offsetting and more for planar polygons with integral coordinates.

Function objects and higher-order programming

  • 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.
  • Lambda: Define small unnamed function objects at the actual call site, and more.
  • 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).
  • 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.
  • Container Hash: An STL-compatible hash function object that can be extended to hash user defined types.
  • Function: Function object wrappers for deferred calls or callbacks.
  • HOF: Higher-order functions for C++
  • Member Function: Generalized binders for function/object/pointers and member functions.
  • Lambda2: A C++14 lambda library.
  • Container Hash: An STL-compatible hash function object that can be extended to hash user defined types.
  • 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 to simplify operator definition in arithmetic classes and iterators.
  • Property Map: Concepts defining interfaces which map key objects to value objects.
  • Property Map (Parallel): Parallel extensions to Property Map for use with Parallel Graph.
  • QVM: Generic C++ library for working with Quaternions Vectors and Matrices.
  • Static Assert: Static assertions (compile time assertions).
  • TTI: Type Traits Introspection library.
  • Type Traits: Templates for fundamental properties of types.
  • GIL: (C++14) Generic Image Library
  • Stl_interfaces: C++14 and later CRTP templates for defining iterators, views, and containers.
  • YAP: An expression template library for C++14 and later.
  • Iterator_facade: A C++14 and later CRTP template for defining iterators.

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.
  • Metaparse: A library for generating compile time parsers parsing embedded DSL code as part of the C++ compilation process
  • 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.
  • Static Assert: Static assertions (compile time assertions).
  • TTI: Type Traits Introspection library.
  • Type Traits: Templates for fundamental properties of 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.
  • HOF: Higher-order functions for C++
  • Mp11: A C++11 metaprogramming library.
  • 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.
  • PFR: Basic reflection for user defined types.
  • YAP: An expression template library for C++14 and later.
  • Describe: A C++14 reflection library.
  • Proto: Expression template library and compiler construction toolkit for domain-specific embedded languages.

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

  • Interprocess: Shared memory, memory mapped files, process-shared mutexes, condition variables, containers and allocators.
  • Lockfree: Lockfree data structures.
  • MPI: Message Passing Interface library, for use in distributed-memory parallel application 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 types.
  • 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.
  • MySQL: MySQL client library built on top of Boost.Asio.
  • Thread: Portable C++ multi-threading. C++11, C++14, C++17.
  • Redis: Redis async client library built on top of Boost.Asio.
  • Cobalt: Coroutines. Basic Algorithms & Types
  • Compute: Parallel/GPU-computing library
  • Coroutine (deprecated): Coroutine library.
  • Sync: Thread synchronization primitives.

Math and numerics

  • Accumulators: Framework for incremental calculation, and collection of statistical accumulators.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Operators: Templates to simplify operator definition in arithmetic classes and iterators.
  • QVM: Generic C++ library for working with Quaternions Vectors and Matrices.
  • Rational: A rational number class.
  • Endian: Types and conversion functions for correct byte ordering and more regardless of processor endianness.
  • Odeint: Solving ordinary differential equations.
  • Random: A complete system for random number generation.
  • Ratio: Compile time rational arithmetic. C++11.
  • uBLAS: uBLAS provides tensor, matrix, and vector classes as well as basic linear and multilinear algebra routines. Several dense, packed and sparse storage schemes are supported.
  • Geometry: The Boost.Geometry library provides geometric algorithms, primitives and spatial index.
  • Histogram: Fast multi-dimensional histogram with convenient interface for C++14
  • Math: Boost.Math includes several contributions in the domain of mathematics: Floating Point Utilities, Specific Width Floating Point Types, Mathematical Constants, Statistical Distributions, Special Functions, Root Finding and Function Minimization, Polynomials and Rational Functions, Interpolation, and Numerical Integration and Differentiation. Many of these features are templated to support both built-in, and extended width types (e.g. Boost.Multiprecision)
  • 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, and rational arithmetic.
  • Safe Numerics: Guaranteed Correct Integer Arithmetic
  • Polygon: Voronoi diagram construction and booleans/clipping, resizing/offsetting and more for planar polygons with integral coordinates.

Correctness and testing

  • Assert: Customizable assert macros.
  • Concept Check: Tools for generic programming.
  • Static Assert: Static assertions (compile time assertions).
  • Stacktrace: Gather, store, copy and print backtraces.
  • Test: Support for simple program testing, full unit testing, and for program execution monitoring.
  • 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.

Error handling and recovery

  • Assert: Customizable assert macros.
  • Exception: The Boost Exception library supports transporting of arbitrary data in exception objects, and transporting of exceptions between threads.
  • ThrowException: A common infrastructure for throwing exceptions from Boost libraries.
  • LEAF: A lightweight error handling library for C++11.
  • System: Extensible error reporting.

Data structures

  • Compressed Pair: A pair class with empty member optimization.
  • Container: Standard library containers and extensions.
  • Fusion: Library for working with tuples, including various containers, algorithms, etc.
  • Heap: Priority queue data structures.
  • ICL: Interval Container Library, interval sets and maps and aggregation of associated values
  • 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.
  • Pointer Container: Containers for storing heap-allocated polymorphic objects to ease OO-programming.
  • Tuple: Ease definition of functions returning multiple values, and more.
  • Type Erasure: Runtime polymorphism based on concepts.
  • Uuid: A universally unique identifier.
  • Any: Safe, generic container for single values of different value types.
  • JSON: JSON parsing, serialization, and DOM in C++11
  • Property Tree: A tree data structure especially suited to storing configuration data.
  • URL: URL parsing in C++11
  • Variant: Safe, generic, stack-based discriminated union container.
  • 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.
  • Polygon: Voronoi diagram construction and booleans/clipping, resizing/offsetting and more for planar polygons with integral coordinates.

Domain Specific

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

Image processing

  • GIL: (C++14) Generic Image Library

Input/Output

  • 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.
  • IO: Utilities for the standard I/O library.
  • Iostreams: Boost.IOStreams provides a framework for defining streams, stream buffers and i/o filters.
  • Serialization: Serialization for persistence and marshalling.
  • Asio: Portable networking and other low-level I/O, including sockets, timers, hostname resolution, socket iostreams, serial ports, file descriptors and Windows HANDLEs.
  • Beast: Portable HTTP, WebSocket, and network operations using only C++11 and Boost.Asio
  • Endian: Types and conversion functions for correct byte ordering and more regardless of processor endianness.
  • JSON: JSON parsing, serialization, and DOM in C++11
  • MySQL: MySQL client library built on top of Boost.Asio.
  • 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.
  • URL: URL parsing in C++11
  • Redis: Redis async client library built on top of Boost.Asio.

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.
  • Move: Portable move semantics for C++03 and C++11 compilers.
  • Parameter: Boost.Parameter Library - Write functions that accept arguments by name.
  • Parameter Python Bindings: Boost.Parameter Library Python bindings.
  • ThrowException: A common infrastructure for throwing exceptions from Boost libraries.
  • Compat: C++11 implementations of standard components added in later C++ standards.
  • Scope: A collection of scope guards and a unique_resource wrapper.
  • Type Index: Runtime/Compile time copyable type info.
  • Typeof: Typeof operator emulation.
  • Outcome: A deterministic failure handling library partially simulating lightweight exceptions.
  • Describe: A C++14 reflection library.
  • 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.
  • Scope Exit: Execute arbitrary code at scope exit.

Memory

  • Align: Memory alignment functions, allocators, traits.
  • Pool: Memory pool management.
  • Smart Ptr: Smart pointer class templates.

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: A pair class with 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: Various utilities, such as base-from-member idiom and binary literals in C++03.
  • Scope: A collection of scope guards and a unique_resource wrapper.
  • Outcome: A deterministic failure handling library partially simulating lightweight exceptions.

Programming Interfaces

  • Parameter: Boost.Parameter Library - Write functions that accept arguments by name.
  • Parameter Python Bindings: Boost.Parameter Library Python bindings.
  • Compat: C++11 implementations of standard components added in later C++ standards.
  • Function: Function object wrappers for deferred calls or callbacks.
  • System: Extensible error reporting.
  • Outcome: A deterministic failure handling library partially simulating lightweight exceptions.

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.
  • Chrono: Useful time utilities. C++11.
  • Context: (C++11) Context switching library.
  • DLL: Library for comfortable work with DLL and DSO.
  • Fiber: (C++11) Userland threads library.
  • Filesystem: The Boost Filesystem Library provides portable facilities to query and manipulate paths, files, and directories.
  • Nowide: Standard library functions with UTF-8 API on Windows.
  • Process: Library to create processes in a portable way.
  • Stacktrace: Gather, store, copy and print backtraces.
  • System: Extensible error reporting.
  • Thread: Portable C++ multi-threading. C++11, C++14, C++17.

Miscellaneous

  • Core: A collection of simple core utilities with minimal dependencies.
  • Numeric Conversion: Optimized Policy-based Numeric Conversions.
  • Swap: Enhanced generic swap function.
  • Timer: Event timer, progress timer, and progress display classes.
  • Tribool: 3-state boolean type library.
  • Utility: Various utilities, such as base-from-member idiom and binary literals in C++03.
  • Value Initialized: Wrapper for uniform-syntax value initialization, based on the original idea of David Abrahams.
  • CharConv: An implementation of <charconv> in C++11.
  • Conversion: Polymorphic casts.
  • Convert: An extendible and configurable type-conversion framework.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.

Broken compiler workarounds

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