Objectives

This section presents an overview of the libraries available for C++. It discusses the criteria by which to establish whether a library is suitable to be used in a project. These criteria include user preferences, the domain of application and secondary features such as documentation and the availability of support. It also discusses the functionality requirements for each particular application domain.

Points to emphasize

Hints

The overview presented in this section is not complete, yet it does cover the main libraries currently in use. Consult the Internet newsgroup {\tt comp.lang.c++} for updates of the list of compilers and libraries available for C++.

Questions

    .so q4

Comments

In practice, the portability of libraries across compilers and platforms is still a problem. Before discussing a library in more detail you'd best install it and experiment with it first.