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Boost provides free peer-reviewed portable C++ source libraries.
We emphasize libraries that work well with the C++ Standard Library. Boost libraries are intended to be widely useful, and usable across a broad spectrum of applications. The Boost license encourages both commercial and non-commercial use.
We aim to establish "existing practice" and provide reference implementations so that Boost libraries are suitable for eventual standardization. Ten Boost libraries are already included in the C++ Standards Committee's Library Technical Report (TR1) and will be included in the upcoming revision of the C++ Standard. More Boost libraries are proposed for the upcoming TR2.
The release includes updates to many existing libraries. See Release History for more information.
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The release directory tree contains almost all of Boost; documentation, sources, headers, scripts, tools, and everything else a Boost user might need!
The starting point for the documentation of individual libraries is the Libraries page, which gives a brief description of each library and links to its documentation.
Some general interest or often changing Boost information lives only on the Boost web site. The release contains links to the site, so while browsing it you'll see occasional broken links if you aren't connected to the Internet. But everything needed to use the Boost libraries is contained within the release.
Read the introductory material to help you understand what Boost is about and to help in educating your organization about Boost.
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