Chapter 9. Boost.Container

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)

Table of Contents

Introduction

Building Boost.Container
Tested compilers

Main features

Efficient insertion
Containers of Incomplete Types
SCARY iterators
Other features

Boost.Container and C++ exceptions

Non-standard containers

stable_vector
flat_(multi)map/set associative containers
slist
static_vector

Extended functionality

Default initialization for vector-like containers
Ordered range insertion for associative containers (ordered_unique_range, ordered_range)
Configurable tree-based associative ordered containers
Constant-time range splice for (s)list
Extended allocators

C++11 Conformance

Move and Emplace
Stateful allocators
Scoped allocators
Initializer lists
forward_list<T>
vector vs. std::vector exception guarantees
vector<bool>
Non-standard value initialization using std::memset

Known Issues

Move emulation limitations in C++03 compilers

History and reasons to use Boost.Container

Boost.Container history
Why Boost.Container?

Indexes

Class Index
Typedef Index
Function Index

Boost.Container Header Reference

Header <boost/container/adaptive_pool.hpp>
Header <boost/container/allocator.hpp>
Header <boost/container/allocator_traits.hpp>
Header <boost/container/container_fwd.hpp>
Header <boost/container/deque.hpp>
Header <boost/container/flat_map.hpp>
Header <boost/container/flat_set.hpp>
Header <boost/container/list.hpp>
Header <boost/container/map.hpp>
Header <boost/container/node_allocator.hpp>
Header <boost/container/options.hpp>
Header <boost/container/scoped_allocator.hpp>
Header <boost/container/scoped_allocator_fwd.hpp>
Header <boost/container/set.hpp>
Header <boost/container/slist.hpp>
Header <boost/container/stable_vector.hpp>
Header <boost/container/static_vector.hpp>
Header <boost/container/string.hpp>
Header <boost/container/throw_exception.hpp>
Header <boost/container/vector.hpp>

Acknowledgements, notes and links

Release Notes

Boost 1.56 Release
Boost 1.55 Release
Boost 1.54 Release
Boost 1.53 Release
Boost 1.52 Release
Boost 1.51 Release
Boost 1.50 Release
Boost 1.49 Release
Boost 1.48 Release

Introduction

Building Boost.Container
Tested compilers

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

Boost C++ Libraries