Library header files in C++ programming with meaning are listed below. You can use the following header files by including the header files in the program using #include.

Utilities libraries

Libraries	Meaning
<cstdlib>	General purpose utilities: program control, dynamic memory allocation, random numbers, sort and search.
<csignal>	Functions and macro constants for signal management.
<csetjmp>	Macro (and function) that saves (and jumps) to an execution context.
<cstdarg>	Handling of variable length argument lists.
<typeinfo>	Runtime type information utilities.
<typeindex>	std::type_index.
<type_traits>	Compile-time type information.
<bitset>	std::bitset class template.
<functional>	Function objects, designed for use with the standard algorithms.
<utility>	Various utility components.
<ctime>	C-style time/date utilites.
<chrono>	C++ time utilities.
<cstddef>	typedefs for types such as size_t, NULL and others.
<initializer_list>	std::initializer_list class template.
<tuple>	std::tuple class template.

Dynamic memory management

Libraries	Meaning
<new>	Low-level memory management utilities.
<memory>	Higher level memory management utilities.
<scoped_allocator>	Nested allocator class.

Numeric limits

Libraries	Meaning
<climits>	limits of integral types.
<cfloat>	limits of float types.
<cstdint>	fixed-size types and limits of other types.
<cinttypes>	formatting macros, intmax_t and uintmax_t math and conversions.
<limits>	standardized way to query properties of fundamental types.

Error handling

Libraries	Meaning
<exception>	Exception handling utilities.
<stdexcept>	Standard exception objects.
<cassert>	Conditionally compiled macro that compares its argument to zero.
<system_error>	defines std::error_code, a platform-dependent error code.
<cerrno>	Macro containing the last error number.

Strings libraries

Libraries	Meaning
<cctype>	functions to determine the type contained in character data.
<cwctype>	functions for determining the type of wide character data.
<cstring>	various narrow character string handling functions.
<cwchar>	various wide and multibyte string handling functions.
<cuchar>	C-style Unicode character conversion functions.
<string>	std::basic_string class template.

Containers libraries

Libraries	Meaning
<array>	std::array container.
<vector>	std::vector container.
<deque>	std::deque container.
<list>	std::list container.
<forward_list>	std::forward_list container.
<set>	std::set and std::multiset associative containers.
<map>	std::map and std::multimap associative containers.
<unordered_set>	std::unordered_set and std::unordered_multiset unordered associative containers.
<unordered_map>	std::unordered_map and std::unordered_multimap unordered associative containers.
<stack>	std::stack container adaptor.
<queue>	std::queue and std::priority_queue container adaptors.

Algorithms libraries

Libraries	Meaning
<algorithm>	Algorithms that operate on containers.

Iterators libraries

Libraries	Meaning
<iterator>	Container iterators.

Numeric libraries

Libraries	Meaning
<cmath>	Common mathematics functions.
<complex>	Complex number type.
<valarray>	Class for representing and manipulating arrays of values.
<random>	Random number generators and distributions.
<numeric>	Numeric operations on values in containers.
<ratio>	Compile-time rational arithmetic.
<cfenv>	Floating-point environment access functions.

Input/output libraries

Libraries	Meaning
<iosfwd>	forward declarations of all classes in the input/output library.
<ios>	std::ios_base class, std::basic_ios class template and several typedefs.
<istream>	std::basic_istream class template and several typedefs.
<ostream>	std::basic_ostream, std::basic_iostream class templates and several typedefs.
<iostream>	several standard stream objects.
<fstream>	std::basic_fstream, std::basic_ifstream, std::basic_ofstream class templates and several typedefs.
<sstream>	std::basic_stringstream, std::basic_istringstream, std::basic_ostringstream class templates and several typedefs.
<strstream>	std::strstream, std::istrstream, std::ostrstream(deprecated).
<iomanip>	Helper functions to control the format or input and output.
<streambuf>	std::basic_streambuf class template.
<cstdio>	C-style input-output functions.

Localization libraries

Libraries	Meaning
<locale>	Localization utilities.
<clocale>	C localization utilities.
<codecvt>	Unicode conversion facilities.

Regular Expressions libraries

Libraries	Meaning
<regex>	Classes, algorithms and iterators to support regular expression processing.

Atomic Operations libraries

Libraries	Meaning
<atomic>	Atomic operations library.

Thread support libraries

Libraries	Meaning
<thread>	std::thread class and supporting functions.
<mutex>	mutual exclusion primitives.
<shared_mutex>	shared mutual exclusion primitives.
<future>	primitives for asynchronous computations.
<condition_variable>	thread waiting conditions.

C compatibility headers

Libraries	Meaning
<ciso646>	empty header. The macros that appear in iso646.h in C are keywords in C++.
<ccomplex>	simply includes the header <complex>.
<ctgmath>	simply includes the headers <ccomplex> and <cmath>: the overloads equivalent to the contents of the C header tgmath.h are already provided by <cmath> and <complex>.
<cstdalign>	defines one compatibility macro constant.
<cstdbool>	defines one compatibility macro constant.

Deprecated headers

Libraries	Meaning
<assert.h>	behaves as if each name from <cassert> is placed in global namespace.
<complex.h>	behaves as if each name from <ccomplex> is placed in global namespace.
<ctype.h>	behaves as if each name from <cctype> is placed in global namespace.
<errno.h>	behaves as if each name from <cerrno> is placed in global namespace.
<fenv.h>	behaves as if each name from <cfenv> is placed in global namespace.
<float.h>	behaves as if each name from <cfloat> is placed in global namespace.
<inttypes.h>	behaves as if each name from <cinttypes> is placed in global namespace.
<iso646.h>	behaves as if each name from <ciso646> is placed in global namespace.
<limits.h>	behaves as if each name from <climits> is placed in global namespace.
<locale.h>	behaves as if each name from <clocale> is placed in global namespace.
<math.h>	behaves as if each name from <cmath> is placed in global namespace.
<setjmp.h>	behaves as if each name from <csetjmp> is placed in global namespace.
<signal.h>	behaves as if each name from <csignal> is placed in global namespace.
<stdalign.h>	behaves as if each name from <cstdalign> is placed in global namespace.
<stdarg.h>	behaves as if each name from <cstdarg> is placed in global namespace.
<stdbool.h>	behaves as if each name from <cstdbool> is placed in global namespace.
<stddef.h>	behaves as if each name from <cstddef> is placed in global namespace.
<stdint.h>	behaves as if each name from <cstdint> is placed in global namespace.
<stdio.h>	behaves as if each name from <cstdio> is placed in global namespace.
<stdlib.h>	behaves as if each name from <cstdlib> is placed in global namespace.
<string.h>	behaves as if each name from <cstring> is placed in global namespace.
<tgmath.h>	behaves as if each name from <ctgmath> is placed in global namespace.
<time.h>	behaves as if each name from <ctime> is placed in global namespace.
<uchar.h>	behaves as if each name from <cuchar> is placed in global namespace.
<wchar.h>	behaves as if each name from <cwchar> is placed in global namespace.
<wctype.h>	behaves as if each name from <cwctype> is placed in global namespace.

Previous Next