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Libraries Listed Alphabetically
Libraries Listed by Category

String and text processing
Containers
Iterators
Algorithms
Function Objects and higher-order programming
Generic Programming
Template Metaprogramming
Preprocessor Metaprogramming
Concurrent Programming
Math and numerics
Correctness and testing
Data structures
Image processing
Input/Output
Inter-language support
Memory
Parsing
Programming Interfaces
Miscellaneous
Broken compiler workarounds

Libraries Retired from Boost

See Getting Started page to find out how to download, build, and install the libraries.

## Libraries Listed Alphabetically

- accumulators - Framework for incremental calculation, and collection of statistical accumulators, from Eric Niebler.
- any - Safe, generic container for single values of different value types, from Kevlin Henney.
- array - STL compliant container wrapper for arrays of constant size, from Nicolai Josuttis.
- asio - Portable networking and other low-level I/O, including sockets, timers, hostname resolution, socket iostreams, serial ports, file descriptors and Windows HANDLEs, from Chris Kohlhoff.
- assign - Filling containers with constant or generated data has never been easier, from Thorsten Ottosen.
- bimap - Bidirectional maps, from Matias Capeletto.
- bind and mem_fn - Generalized binders for function/object/pointers and member functions, from Peter Dimov.
- call_traits - Defines types for passing parameters, from John Maddock, Howard Hinnant, et al.
- circular_buffer - STL compliant container also known as ring or cyclic buffer, from Jan Gaspar.
- compatibility - Help for non-conforming standard libraries, from Ralf Grosse-Kunstleve and Jens Maurer.
- compressed_pair - Empty member optimization, from John Maddock, Howard Hinnant, et al.
- concept check - Tools for generic programming, from Jeremy Siek.
- config - Helps boost library developers adapt to compiler idiosyncrasies; not intended for library users.
- conversion - Polymorphic and lexical casts, from Dave Abrahams and Kevlin Henney.
- crc - Cyclic Redundancy Code, from Daryle Walker.
- date_time - Date-Time library from Jeff Garland.
- dynamic_bitset - A runtime sized version of `std::bitset` from Jeremy Siek and Chuck Allison.
- exception - A library for transporting of arbitrary data in exception objects, and transporting of exceptions between threads (N2179), from Emil Dotchevski.
- enable_if - Selective inclusion of function template overloads, from Jaakko Järvi, Jeremiah Willcock, and Andrew Lumsdaine.
- filesystem - Portable paths, iteration over directories, and other useful filesystem operations, from Beman Dawes.
- flyweight - Design pattern to manage large quantities of highly redundant objects, from Joaquín M López Muñoz.
- foreach - BOOST_FOREACH macro for easily iterating over the elements of a sequence, from Eric Niebler.
- format - Type-safe 'printf-like' format operations, from Samuel Krempp.
- function - Function object wrappers for deferred calls or callbacks, from Doug Gregor.
- function_types - Type traits for callable, built-in types, from Tobias Schwinger
- functional - Enhanced function object adaptors, from Mark Rodgers.
- functional/factory - function object templates for dynamic and static object creation, from Tobias Schwinger
- functional/forward - adapters to allow generic function objects to accept arbitrary arguments, from Tobias Schwinger
- functional/hash - A TR1 hash function object that can be extended to hash user defined types, from Daniel James.
- fusion - Library for working with tuples, including various containers, algorithms, etc. From Joel de Guzman, Dan Marsden and Tobias Schwinger.
- gil - Generic Image Library, from Lubomir Bourdev and Hailin Jin.
- graph - Generic graph components and algorithms, from Jeremy Siek and a University of Notre Dame team; now maintained by Andrew Sutton and Jeremiah Willcock.
- icl - Interval Container Library, interval sets and maps and aggregation of associated values, from Joachim Faulhaber.
- integer - Headers to ease dealing with integral types.
- interprocess - Shared memory, memory mapped files, process-shared mutexes, condition variables, containers and allocators, from Ion Gaztañaga
- interval - Extends the usual arithmetic functions to mathematical intervals, from Guillaume Melquiond, Hervé Brönnimann and Sylvain Pion.
- intrusive - Intrusive containers and algorithms, from Ion Gaztañaga
- in_place_factory, typed_in_place_factory- Generic in-place construction of contained objects with a variadic argument-list, from Fernando Cacciola.
- io state savers - Save I/O state to prevent jumbled data, from Daryle Walker.
- iostreams - Framework for defining streams, stream buffers and i/o filters, from Jonathan Turkanis.
- iterators - Iterator construction framework, adaptors, concepts, and more, from Dave Abrahams, Jeremy Siek, and Thomas Witt.
- lambda - Define small unnamed function objects at the actual call site, and more, from Jaakko Järvi and Gary Powell.
- lexical_cast - General literal text conversions, such as an `int` represented as a `string`, or vice-versa, from Kevlin Henney.
- math - Several contributions in the domain of mathematics, from various authors.
- math/complex number algorithms - These complex number algorithms are the inverses of trigonometric functions currently present in the C++ standard, from John Maddock.
- math/common_factor - Greatest common divisor and least common multiple, from Daryle Walker.
- math/octonion - Octonions, from Hubert Holin.
- math/quaternion - Quaternions, from Hubert Holin.
- math/special_functions - A wide selection of mathematical special functions from John Maddock, Paul Bristow, Hubert Holin and Xiaogang Zhang.
- math/statistical distributions - A wide selection of univariate statistical distributions and functions that operate on them from John Maddock and Paul Bristow
- minmax - standard library extensions for simultaneous min/max and min/max element computations, from Hervé Brönnimann.
- MPI - Message Passing Interface library, for use in distributed-memory parallel application programming, from Douglas Gregor and Matthias Troyer.
- mpl - Template metaprogramming framework of compile-time algorithms, sequences and metafunction classes, from Aleksey Gurtovoy.
- meta state machine - High-performance expressive UML 2.0 finite state machines, from Christophe Henry.
- multi_array - Multidimensional containers and adaptors for arrays of contiguous data, from Ron Garcia.
- multi_index - Containers with multiple STL-compatible access interfaces, from Joaquín M López Muñoz.
- numeric/conversion - Optimized Policy-based Numeric Conversions, from Fernando Cacciola.
- operators - Templates ease arithmetic classes and iterators, from Dave Abrahams and Jeremy Siek.
- optional - Discriminated-union wrapper for optional values, from Fernando Cacciola.
- parameter - Write functions that accept arguments by name, by David Abrahams and Daniel Wallin.
- pointer container - Containers for storing heap-allocated polymorphic objects to ease OO-programming, from Thorsten Ottosen.
- polygon - Booleans/clipping, resizing/offsetting and more for planar polygons with integral coordinates, from Lucanus Simonson.
- pool - Memory pool management, from Steve Cleary.
- preprocessor - Preprocessor metaprogramming tools including repetition and recursion, from Vesa Karvonen and Paul Mensonides.
- program_options - Access to configuration data given on command line, in config files and other sources, from Vladimir Prus.
- property map - Concepts defining interfaces which map key objects to value objects, from Jeremy Siek.
- property tree - A tree data structure especially suited to storing configuration data, from Marcin Kalicinski and Sebastian Redl.
- proto - Expression template library and compiler construction toolkit for domain-specific embedded languages, from Eric Niebler.
- python - Reflects C++ classes and functions into Python, from Dave Abrahams.
- random - A complete system for random number generation, from Jens Maurer.
- range - Concepts and utilities for range-based algorithms, as well as range-based algorithms and range adaptors that allow for efficient and very expressive code, from Thorsten Ottosen and Neil Groves.
- rational - A rational number class, from Paul Moore.
- ref - A utility library for passing references to generic functions, from Jaako Järvi, Peter Dimov, Doug Gregor, and Dave Abrahams.
- regex - Regular expression library, from John Maddock.
- result_of - determines the type of a function call expression.
- scope_exit - Execute arbitrary code at scope exit, from Alexander Nasonov.
- serialization - Serialization for persistence and marshalling, from Robert Ramey
- signals - managed signals & slots callback implementation, from Doug Gregor.
- signals2 - managed signals & slots callback implementation (thread-safe version 2), from Frank Mori Hess.
- smart_ptr - Six smart pointer class templates, from Greg Colvin, Beman Dawes, Peter Dimov, and Darin Adler.
- statechart - Arbitrarily complex finite state machines can be implemented in easily readable and maintainable C++ code, from Andreas Huber.
- static_assert - Static assertions (compile time assertions), from John Maddock.
- spirit - LL parser framework represents parsers directly as EBNF grammars in inlined C++, from Joel de Guzman, Hartmut Kaiser, Dan Nuffer and team.
- string_algo - String algorithms library, from Pavol Droba.
- swap - Enhanced generic swap function, from Joseph Gauterin.
- system - Operating system support, including the diagnostics support that will be part of the C++0x standard library, from Beman Dawes.
- test - Support for simple program testing, full unit testing, and for program execution monitoring, from Gennadiy Rozental.
- thread - Portable C++ multi-threading, from William Kempf and Anthony Williams.
- timer - Event timer, progress timer, and progress display classes, from Beman Dawes.
- tokenizer - Break of a string or other character sequence into a series of tokens, from John Bandela.
- TR1 - An implementation of the Technical Report on C++ Library Extensions, using other Boost libraries as a basis, from John Maddock.
- tribool - 3-state boolean type library, from Doug Gregor.
- tuple - Ease definition of functions returning multiple values, and more, from Jaakko Järvi.
- type_traits - Templates for fundamental properties of types, from John Maddock, Steve Cleary, et al.
- typeof - Typeof operator emulation, from Arkadiy Vertleyb and Peder Holt.
- uBLAS - Basic linear algebra for dense, packed and sparse matrices, from Joerg Walter and Mathias Koch.
- units - Zero-overhead dimensional analysis and unit/quantity manipulation and conversion, from Matthias Schabel and Steven Watanabe.
- unordered - unordered associative containers, from Daniel James.
- utility - Class noncopyable plus checked_delete(), checked_array_delete(), next(), prior() function templates, plus base-from-member idiom, from Dave Abrahams and others.
- value_initialized - Wrapper for uniform-syntax value initialization, from Fernando Cacciola, based on the original idea of David Abrahams.
- uuid - A universally unique identifier, from Andy Tompkins.
- variant - Safe, generic, stack-based discriminated union container, from Eric Friedman and Itay Maman.
- wave - Standards conformant implementation of the mandated C99/C++ preprocessor functionality packed behind an easy to use iterator interface, from Hartmut Kaiser
- xpressive - Regular expressions that can be written as strings or as expression templates, and that can refer to each other and themselves recursively with the power of context-free grammars, from Eric Niebler.

## Libraries Listed by Category

### String and text processing

- conversion/lexical_cast - `lexical_cast` class template, from Kevlin Henney.
- format - Type-safe 'printf-like' format operations, from Samuel Krempp.
- iostreams - Framework for defining streams, stream buffers and i/o filters, from Jonathan Turkanis.
- regex - Regular expression library, from John Maddock
- spirit - LL parser framework represents parsers directly as EBNF grammars in inlined C++, from Joel de Guzman, Hartmut Kaiser, Dan Nuffer and team.
- string_algo - String algorithms library, from Pavol Droba
- tokenizer - Break of a string or other character sequence into a series of tokens, from John Bandela
- wave - Standards conformant implementation of the mandated C99/C++ preprocessor functionality packed behind an easy to use iterator interface, from Hartmut Kaiser.
- xpressive - Regular expressions that can be written as strings or as expression templates, and that can refer to each other and themselves recursively with the power of context-free grammars, from Eric Niebler.

### Containers

- array - STL compliant container wrapper for arrays of constant size, from Nicolai Josuttis.
- bimap - Bidirectional maps, from Matias Capeletto.
- circular_buffer - STL compliant container also known as ring or cyclic buffer, from Jan Gaspar.
- dynamic_bitset - A runtime sized version of `std::bitset` from Jeremy Siek and Chuck Allison.
- gil - Generic Image Library, from Lubomir Bourdev and Hailin Jin.
- graph - Generic graph components and algorithms, from Jeremy Siek and a University of Notre Dame team; now maintained by Andrew Sutton and Jeremiah Willcock.
- icl - Interval Container Library, interval sets and maps and aggregation of associated values, from Joachim Faulhaber.
- intrusive - Intrusive containers and algorithms, from Ion Gaztañaga
- multi_array - Multidimensional containers and adaptors for arrays of contiguous data, from Ron Garcia.
- multi_index - Containers with multiple STL-compatible access interfaces, from Joaquín M López Muñoz.
- pointer container - Containers for storing heap-allocated polymorphic objects to ease OO-programming, from Thorsten Ottosen.
- property map - Concepts defining interfaces which map key objects to value objects, from Jeremy Siek.
- property tree - A tree data structure especially suited to storing configuration data, from Marcin Kalicinski and Sebastian Redl.
- unordered - unordered associative containers, from Daniel James.
- variant - Safe, generic, stack-based discriminated union container, from Eric Friedman and Itay Maman.

### Iterators

- gil - Generic Image Library, from Lubomir Bourdev and Hailin Jin.
- graph - Generic graph components and algorithms, from Jeremy Siek and a University of Notre Dame team; now maintained by Andrew Sutton and Jeremiah Willcock.
- iterators - Iterator construction framework, adaptors, concepts, and more, from Dave Abrahams, Jeremy Siek, and Thomas Witt.
- operators - Templates ease arithmetic classes and iterators, from Dave Abrahams and Jeremy Siek.
- tokenizer - Break of a string or other character sequence into a series of tokens, from John Bandela.

### Algorithms

- foreach - BOOST_FOREACH macro for easily iterating over the elements of a sequence, from Eric Niebler.
- gil - Generic Image Library, from Lubomir Bourdev and Hailin Jin.
- graph - Generic graph components and algorithms, from Jeremy Siek and a University of Notre Dame team; now maintained by Andrew Sutton and Jeremiah Willcock.
- minmax - standard library extensions for simultaneous min/max and min/max element computations, from Hervé Brönnimann.
- range - A new infrastructure for generic algorithms that builds on top of the new iterator concepts, from Thorsten Ottosen.
- string_algo - String algorithms library, from Pavol Droba
- utility - Class next(), prior() function templates, from Dave Abrahams and others.

### Function objects and higher-order programming

- bind and mem_fn - Generalized binders for function/object/pointers and member functions, from Peter Dimov.
- function - Function object wrappers for deferred calls or callbacks, from Doug Gregor.
- functional - Enhanced function object adaptors, from Mark Rodgers.
- functional/factory - function object templates for dynamic and static object creation, from Tobias Schwinger
- functional/forward - adapters to allow generic function objects to accept arbitrary arguments, from Tobias Schwinger
- functional/hash - A TR1 hash function object that can be extended to hash user defined types, from Daniel James.
- lambda - Define small unnamed function objects at the actual call site, and more, from Jaakko Järvi and Gary Powell.
- ref - A utility library for passing references to generic functions, from Jaako Järvi, Peter Dimov, Doug Gregor, and Dave Abrahams.
- signals - managed signals & slots callback implementation, from Doug Gregor.
- signals2 - managed signals & slots callback implementation (thread-safe version 2), from Frank Mori Hess.
- result_of - determines the type of a function call expression.

### Generic Programming

- call_traits - Defines types for passing parameters, from John Maddock, Howard Hinnant, et al.
- concept check - Tools for generic programming, from Jeremy Siek.
- enable_if - Selective inclusion of function template overloads, from Jaakko Järvi, Jeremiah Willcock, and Andrew Lumsdaine.
- function_types - Type traits for callable, built-in types, from Tobias Schwinger
- gil - Generic Image Library, from Lubomir Bourdev and Hailin Jin.
- in_place_factory, typed_in_place_factory- Generic in-place construction of contained objects with a variadic argument-list, from Fernando Cacciola.
- operators - Templates ease arithmetic classes and iterators, from Dave Abrahams and Jeremy Siek.
- property map - Concepts defining interfaces which map key objects to value objects, from Jeremy Siek.
- static_assert - Static assertions (compile time assertions), from John Maddock.
- type_traits - Templates for fundamental properties of types, from John Maddock, Steve Cleary, et al.

### Template Metaprogramming

- function_types - Type traits for callable, built-in types, from Tobias Schwinger
- fusion - Library for working with tuples, including various containers, algorithms, etc. From Joel de Guzman, Dan Marsden and Tobias Schwinger.
- mpl - Template metaprogramming framework of compile-time algorithms, sequences and metafunction classes, from Aleksey Gurtovoy.
- proto - Expression template library and compiler construction toolkit for domain-specific embedded languages, from Eric Niebler.
- static_assert - Static assertions (compile time assertions), from John Maddock.
- type_traits - Templates for fundamental properties of types, from John Maddock, Steve Cleary, et al.

### Preprocessor Metaprogramming

- preprocessor - Preprocessor metaprogramming tools including repetition and recursion, from Vesa Karvonen and Paul Mensonides.

### Concurrent Programming

- asio - Portable networking and other low-level I/O, including sockets, timers, hostname resolution, socket iostreams, serial ports, file descriptors and Windows HANDLEs, from Chris Kohlhoff.
- interprocess - Shared memory, memory mapped files, process-shared mutexes, condition variables, containers and allocators, from Ion Gaztañaga
- MPI - Message Passing Interface library, for use in distributed-memory parallel application programming, from Douglas Gregor and Matthias Troyer.
- thread - Portable C++ multi-threading, from William Kempf.

### Math and numerics

- accumulators - Framework for incremental calculation, and collection of statistical accumulators, from Eric Niebler.
- integer - Headers to ease dealing with integral types.
- interval - Extends the usual arithmetic functions to mathematical intervals, from Guillaume Melquiond, Hervé Brönnimann and Sylvain Pion.
- math - Several contributions in the domain of mathematics, from various authors.
- math/complex number algorithms - These complex number algorithms are the inverses of trigonometric functions currently present in the C++ standard, from John Maddock.
- math/common_factor - Greatest common divisor and least common multiple, from Daryle Walker.
- math/octonion - Octonions, from Hubert Holin.
- math/quaternion - Quaternions, from Hubert Holin.
- math/special_functions - A wide selection of mathematical special functions from John Maddock, Paul Bristow, Hubert Holin and Xiaogang Zhang.
- math/statistical distributions - A wide selection of univariate statistical distributions and functions that operate on them from John Maddock and Paul Bristow
- multi_array - Multidimensional containers and adaptors for arrays of contiguous data, from Ron Garcia.
- numeric/conversion - Optimized Policy-based Numeric Conversions, from Fernando
- operators - Templates ease arithmetic classes and iterators, from Dave Abrahams and Jeremy Siek.
- random - A complete system for random number generation, from Jens Maurer.
- rational - A rational number class, from Paul Moore.
- uBLAS - Basic linear algebra for dense, packed and sparse matrices, from Joerg Walter and Mathias Koch.

### Correctness and testing

- concept check - Tools for generic programming, from Jeremy Siek.
- static_assert - Static assertions (compile time assertions), from John Maddock.
- test - Support for simple program testing, full unit testing, and for program execution monitoring, from Gennadiy Rozental.

### Data structures

- any - Safe, generic container for single values of different value types, from Kevlin Henney.
- bimap - Bidirectional maps, from Matias Capeletto.
- compressed_pair - Empty member optimization, from John Maddock, Howard Hinnant, et al.
- fusion - Library for working with tuples, including various containers, algorithms, etc. From Joel de Guzman and Dan Marsden and Tobias Schwinger.
- icl - Interval Container Library, interval sets and maps and aggregation of associated values, from Joachim Faulhaber.
- multi_index - Containers with multiple STL-compatible access interfaces, from Joaquín M López Muñoz.
- pointer container - Containers for storing heap-allocated polymorphic objects to ease OO-programming, from Thorsten Ottosen.
- property tree - A tree data structure especially suited to storing configuration data, from Marcin Kalicinski and Sebastian Redl.
- tuple - Ease definition of functions returning multiple values, and more, from Jaakko Järvi.
- uuid - A universally unique identifier, from Andy Tompkins.
- variant - Safe, generic, stack-based discriminated union container, from Eric Friedman and Itay Maman.

### Image processing

- gil - Generic Image Library, from Lubomir Bourdev and Hailin Jin.

### Input/Output

- asio - Portable networking and other low-level I/O, including sockets, timers, hostname resolution, socket iostreams, serial ports, file descriptors and Windows HANDLEs, from Chris Kohlhoff.
- assign - Filling containers with constant or generated data has never been easier, from Thorsten Ottosen.
- format - Type-safe 'printf-like' format operations, from Samuel Krempp.
- io state savers - Save I/O state to prevent jumbled data, from Daryle Walker.
- iostreams - Framework for defining streams, stream buffers and i/o filters, from Jonathan Turkanis.
- program_options - Access to configuration data given on command line, in config files and other sources, from Vladimir Prus.
- serialization - Serialization of arbitrary data for persistence and marshalling, from Robert Ramey

### Inter-language support

- python - Reflects C++ classes and functions into Python, from Dave Abrahams.

### Memory

- pool - Memory pool management, from Steve Cleary.
- smart_ptr - Six smart pointer class templates, from Greg Colvin, Beman Dawes, Peter Dimov, and Darin Adler.
- utility - Class noncopyable plus checked_delete(), checked_array_delete(), next(), prior() function templates, plus base-from-member idiom, from Dave Abrahams and others.

### Parsing

- spirit - LL parser framework represents parsers directly as EBNF grammars in inlined C++, from Joel de Guzman, Hartmut Kaiser, Dan Nuffer and team.

### Programming Interfaces

- function - Function object wrappers for deferred calls or callbacks, from Doug Gregor.
- parameter - Write functions that accept arguments by name, by David Abrahams and Daniel Wallin.

### Miscellaneous

- base-from-member - Idiom to initialize a base class with a member, from Daryle Walker.
- compressed_pair - Empty member optimization, from John Maddock, Howard Hinnant, et al.
- conversion - Polymorphic and lexical casts, from Dave Abrahams and Kevlin Henney.
- crc - Cyclic Redundancy Code, from Daryle Walker.
- date_time - Date-Time library from Jeff Garland.
- exception - A library for transporting of arbitrary data in exception objects, and transporting of exceptions between threads (N2179), from Emil Dotchevski.
- filesystem - Portable paths, iteration over directories, and other useful filesystem operations, from Beman Dawes.
- flyweight - Design pattern to manage large quantities of highly redundant objects, from Joaquín M López Muñoz.
- lexical_cast - General literal text conversions, such as an `int` represented as a `string`, or vice-versa, from Kevlin Henney.
- meta state machine - High-performance expressive UML 2.0 finite state machines, from Christophe Henry.
- numeric/conversion - Optimized Policy-based Numeric Conversions, from Fernando Cacciola.
- optional - Discriminated-union wrapper for optional values, from Fernando Cacciola.
- program_options - Access to configuration data given on command line, in config files and other sources, from Vladimir Prus.
- scope_exit - Execute arbitrary code at scope exit, from Alexander Nasonov.
- statechart - Arbitrarily complex finite state machines can be implemented in easily readable and maintainable C++ code, from Andreas Huber.
- swap - Enhanced generic swap function, from Joseph Gauterin.
- system - Operating system support, including the diagnostics support that will be part of the C++0x standard library, from Beman Dawes.
- timer - Event timer, progress timer, and progress display classes, from Beman Dawes.
- TR1 - An implementation of the Technical Report on C++ Library Extensions, using other Boost libraries as a basis, from John Maddock.
- tribool - 3-state boolean type library, from Doug Gregor.
- typeof - Typeof operator emulation, from Arkadiy Vertleyb and Peder Holt.
- units - Zero-overhead dimensional analysis and unit/quantity manipulation and conversion, from Matthias Schabel and Steven Watanabe.
- utility - Class noncopyable plus checked_delete(), checked_array_delete(), next(), prior() function templates, plus base-from-member idiom, from Dave Abrahams and others.
- value_initialized - Wrapper for uniform-syntax value initialization, from Fernando Cacciola, based on the original idea of David Abrahams.

### Broken compiler workarounds

- compatibility - Help for non-conforming standard libraries, from Ralf Grosse-Kunstleve and Jens Maurer.
- config - Helps boost library developers adapt to compiler idiosyncrasies; not intended for library users.

[Category suggestions from Aleksey Gurtovoy and Beman Dawes]

## Libraries Retired from Boost

- compose - Functional composition adapters for the STL, from Nicolai Josuttis. Removed in Boost version 1.32. Please use Bind or Lambda instead.

Revised 03 Nov 2009

© Copyright Beman Dawes 2000-2004

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