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

Welcome to Boost.org!

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) as a step toward becoming part of a future C++ Standard. More Boost libraries will part of the upcoming TR2.

Getting started: Follow the Getting Started Guide to download and install Boost. Popular Linux and Unix distributions such as Fedora, Debian, and NetBSD include pre-built Boost packages. Boost may already be available on your organization's internal web server.

Background: The Background Information page has introductory material to help those educating their organization about Boost.

Participation

Although Boost was begun by members of the C++ Standards Committee Library Working Group, participation has expanded to include thousands of programmers from the C++ community at large.

If you are interested in participating in Boost, please join our main developers mailing list. Discussions are highly technical, and list members are encouraged to participate in formal reviews of proposed libraries. There is also a users mailing list, and several project specific lists.

Both the main Boost developers list and the users list are also accessible as newsgroups.

Latest News

??? - Version 1.33.0

New Libraries

  • iostreams: Framework for defining streams, stream buffers and i/o filters, from Jonathan Turkanis.
  • functional/hash: A TR1 hash function object that can be extended to hash user defined types, from Daniel James.
  • Pointer Container Library: Containers for storing heap-allocated polymorphic objects to ease OO-programming, from Thorsten Ottosen.
  • Wave: Standards conformant implementation of the mandated C99/C++ preprocessor functionality packed behind an easy to use iterator interface, from Hartmut Kaiser.

Updated Libraries

Acknowledgements

Medieval Mr. GregorDouglas Gregor managed this release.