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## Chapter 8. Boost.Container

### Ion Gaztanaga

Copyright © 2009-2013 Ion Gaztanaga

Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. (See accompanying file LICENSE_1_0.txt or copy at http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt)

## Introduction

Boost.Container library implements several well-known containers, including STL containers. The aim of the library is to offers advanced features not present in standard containers or to offer the latest standard draft features for compilers that comply with C++03.

In short, what does Boost.Container offer?

- Move semantics are implemented, including move emulation for pre-C++11 compilers.
- New advanced features (e.g. placement insertion, recursive containers) are present.
- Containers support stateful allocators and are compatible with Boost.Interprocess (they can be safely placed in shared memory).
- The library offers new useful containers:
  - `flat_map`, `flat_set`, `flat_multimap` and `flat_multiset`: drop-in replacements for standard associative containers but more memory friendly and with faster searches.
  - `stable_vector`: a std::list and std::vector hybrid container: vector-like random-access iterators and list-like iterator stability in insertions and erasures.
  - `slist`: the classic pre-standard singly linked list implementation offering constant-time `size()`. Note that C++11 `forward_list` has no `size()`.

### Building Boost.Container

There is no need to compile Boost.Container if you don't use Extended Allocators since in that case it's a header-only library. Just include your Boost header directory in your compiler include path.

Extended Allocators are implemented as a separately compiled library, so you must install binaries in a location that can be found by your linker when using these classes. If you followed the Boost Getting Started instructions, that's already been done for you.

### Tested compilers

Boost.Container requires a decent C++98 compatibility. Some compilers known to work are:

- Visual C++ >= 7.1.
- GCC >= 4.1.
- Intel C++ >= 9.0

Last revised: October 30, 2014 at 10:18:34 GMT |