Standard Template Library (STL), 1 of n

Nytro · May 19, 2011

Standard Template Library (STL), 1 of n

Stephan T. Lavavej

Welcome to another installment of C9 Lectures. In the following series, learn all about STL from the great Stephan T. Lavavej, Microsoft's keeper of the STL cloth (this means he manages the partnership with the owners of STL and Microsoft, including, of course, bug fixes and enhancements to the STL that ships as part of Visual C++).

In this first part, Stephan introduces STL and then demonstrates many of its core features (iterators, algorithms, and data structures). As is Stephan's nature, he elaborates on technical details in very substantive way. The Standard Template Library, or STL, is a C++ library of container classes, algorithms, and iterators. STL provides many fundamental algorithms and data structures. The STL is a general purpose library: its components are heavily parameterized such that almost every component in the STL is a template.

This is not an introductory series on C++. As such, it is expected that viewers already possess a working knowledge of the C++ language. Go ahead and open VC++ IDE and follow along--there are many examples provided on-screen and Stephan will monitor this thread and answer questions.

Enjoy. Learn.

Books mentioned by Stephen:

The C++ Standard Library: A Tutorial And Reference by Nicolai M. Josuttis

Effective STL by Scott Meyers

[sTL Introduction lecture links]

Part 1 (sequence containers)

Part 2 (associative containers)

Part 3 (smart pointers)

Part 4 (Nurikabe solver)

Part 5 (Nurikabe solver, continued)

Part 6 (algorithms and functors)

Part 7 (algorithms and functors, continued)