Question

What is the difference between the STL and the C++ standard library?

Answer 1

The templates? :)

Answer 2

These should be the same thing, unless I'm mistaken.

Answer 3

AFAIK, they're two different things. The standard library would be the header files like iostream that you include in your program. The Standard Template Libraries are data structures implemented so that the client programmer can select the data type.

Answer 4

The standard C++ library is a collection of functions, constants, classes, objects and templates that extends the C++ language providing basic functionality to perform several tasks, like classes to interact with the operating system, data containers, manipulators to operate with them and algorithms commonly needed.

It can be divided into:

- C Library
- Standard Template Library (STL)
- Input/Output Stream Library
- Miscellaneous libraries

The Standard Template Library (STL), part of the C++ Standard Library, offers collections of algorithms, containers, iterators, and other fundamental components, implemented as templates, classes, and functions essential to extend functionality and standardization to C++. STL main focus is to provide improvements implementation standardization with emphasis in performance and correctness

Answer 5

The C++ Standard Library is based upon conventions introduced by the Standard Template Library (STL). Although the C++ Standard Library and the STL share many features, neither is a strict superset of the other. In particular, the C++ Standard Library has also been influenced by the work of Alexander Stepanov and Meng Lee.

-Wikipedia