C++ Programming/Standard Headers

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[edit] Standard Headers

Standard Template Library
algorithm bitset complex deque	exception fstream functional iomanip	ios iosfwd iostream istream	iterator limits list locale	map memory new numeric	ostream queue set sstream	stack stdexcept streambuf string	strstream typeinfo utility valarray	vector

and the

Standard C Library
cassert cctype cerrno	cfloat ciso646 climits	clocale cmath csetjmp	csignal cstdarg cstddef	cstdio cstdlib cstring	ctime cwchar cwctype

Everything inside C++'s standard library is kept in the std:: namespace.

Old compilers may include headers with a .h suffix (e.g. the non-standard <iostream.h> vs. the standard <iostream>) instead of the standard headers. These names were common before the standardization of C++ and some compilers still include these headers for backwards compatibility. Rather than using the std:: namespace, these older headers pollute the global namespace and may otherwise only implement the standard in a limited way.

Some vendors use the SGI STL headers. This was the first implementation of the standard template library.

Non-standard but somewhat common C++ libraries
stdiostream.h[1]	stream.h[2]	strstream.h[3]

1. ↑ Streams based on FILE* from stdio.h.
2. ↑ Precursor to iostream. Old stream library mostly included for backwards compatibility even with old compilers.
3. ↑ Uses char* whereas sstream uses string. Prefer the standard library sstream.