The C++ STL (Standard Template Library) is a generic collection of class templates and algorithms that allow programmers to easily implement standard data structures like queues, lists and stacks.
The C++ STL provides two kinds of containers:
In addition, the C++ standard library provides several non-STL containers.
They can be considered containers, but don't meet all the requirements of STL containers.
The idea behind the C++ STL is that the hard part of using complex data
structures has already been completed. If a programmer would like to use a
stack of integers, all one has to do is use this code:
stack<int> myStack;
With minimal effort, one can now push and pop integers onto this stack. Through the magic of C++ Templates, one could specify any data type, not just integers. The STL Stack class will provide generic functionality of a stack, regardless of the data in the stack.
In addition, the STL also provides a bunch of useful algorithms – such as binary_search, sort, and for_each – that can be used on a variety of containers or data structures.
C++ Iterators provide a generic way of iterating over the STL containers or other data structures.
The <functional> header file defines function objects and function adapters.
The <memory> header file provides simple memory management structures like auto_ptr.
There are several generic utility methods like make_pair in <utility> header file.