20 Library introduction [library]

The C++ standard library provides definitions for the entities and macros described in the synopses of the C++ standard library headers ([headers]).

All library entities except operator new and operator delete are defined within the namespace std or namespaces nested within namespace std.166 It is unspecified whether names declared in a specific namespace are declared directly in that namespace or in an inline namespace inside that namespace.167

Whenever a name x defined in the standard library is mentioned, the name x is assumed to be fully qualified as ​::​std​::​x, unless explicitly described otherwise. For example, if the Effects: section for library function F is described as calling library function G, the function ​::​std​::​G is meant.

Each element of the C++ standard library is declared or defined (as appropriate) in a header.168

The C++ standard library provides the C++ library headers, shown in Table 16.

The facilities of the C standard library are provided in the additional headers shown in Table 17.169

Except as noted in Clauses [library] through [thread] and Annex [depr], the contents of each header cname is the same as that of the corresponding header name.h as specified in the C standard library. In the C++ standard library, however, the declarations (except for names which are defined as macros in C) are within namespace scope of the namespace std. It is unspecified whether these names (including any overloads added in Clauses [language.support] through [thread] and Annex [depr]) are first declared within the global namespace scope and are then injected into namespace std by explicit using-declarations.

Names which are defined as macros in C shall be defined as macros in the C++ standard library, even if C grants license for implementation as functions. [ Note: The names defined as macros in C include the following: assert, offsetof, setjmp, va_­arg, va_­end, and va_­start.  — end note ]

Names that are defined as functions in C shall be defined as functions in the C++ standard library.170

Identifiers that are keywords or operators in C++ shall not be defined as macros in C++ standard library headers.171

[depr.c.headers], C standard library headers, describes the effects of using the name.h (C header) form in a C++ program.172

Annex K of the C standard describes a large number of functions, with associated types and macros, which “promote safer, more secure programming” than many of the traditional C library functions. The names of the functions have a suffix of _­s; most of them provide the same service as the C library function with the unsuffixed name, but generally take an additional argument whose value is the size of the result array. If any C++ header is included, it is implementation-defined whether any of these names is declared in the global namespace. (None of them is declared in namespace std.)

Table 18 lists the Annex K names that may be declared in some header. These names are also subject to the restrictions of [macro.names].

Two kinds of implementations are defined: hosted and freestanding ([intro.compliance]). For a hosted implementation, this International Standard describes the set of available headers.

A freestanding implementation has an implementation-defined set of headers. This set shall include at least the headers shown in Table 19.

The supplied version of the header <cstdlib> shall declare at least the functions abort, atexit, at_­quick_­exit, exit, and quick_­exit ([support.start.term]). The other headers listed in this table shall meet the same requirements as for a hosted implementation.