Extending the C++ Standard Library and the STL

Abstract

The C++ standard library and the STL provide a wide selection of functions, classes and generic containers that can be used in common programming situations. There are, however, times when just the right container or function for a particular programming task is missing from the standard library and the STL. In the first part of this chapter, we will extend the C++ standard library and the STL by developing a custom dynamic_array container that has a functionality that lies between those of std::array and std::vector. Furthermore, one often encounters a good C++ compiler that lacks large parts of the C++ standard library such as the STL, C99 compatibility, the time utilities in <chrono> or the thread support library. The second half of this chapter shows how to emulate partial standard library support with certain self-written parts of the C++ standard library and the STL.