Boost is a collection of peer-reviewed and high-quality libraries that aim to make application development more productive for all C++ developers.
Currently, there are over 180 libraries, and this number increases with regular new releases and updates.
Boost is publicly released three times per year (April, August, and December). Each new release has updates to existing libraries, and possibly new libraries that pass the rigorous acceptance process.
Feedback from the developer community is encouraged.
There are many advantages to using Boost in your C++ projects, the main one being using Boost avoids reinventing the wheel if there is a library that implements functions that you would otherwise have to write yourself. And of course the libraries are well engineered and tested, and not home-brewed. In addition to this:
The libraries implement a modern approach to C++ programming, generally prioritizing performance, correctness, cross-platform portability, efficiency and reusability. Boost offers building blocks, rather than a high-level app framework.
Boost is template-heavy, in order to provide portability and reusability, but this does make for dense syntax, which can take some getting used to.
Boost libraries are written by one, or a team, of independent developers. There will be minor differences in portability, standards, documentation, error reporting, and other aspects, between the libraries.
The current Boost libraries are categorized as follows (the count shows the number of current libraries in the category). Note that one library may appear in two or more categories.
Category
Count
Description
A range of libraries including several for 2D geometry, graphs, performance when iterating, sorting, string efficiency, and miscellaneous utility algorithms.
Broken compiler workarounds
Addresses compiler idiosyncrasies and help for non-conforming standard libraries.
Libraries that address concurrency, threads, networking, sockets, context switching, memory, and other multi-threading functions.
Includes coverage of arrays, buffers, graphs, JSON, heaps, properties, stacks, and other storage constructs and issues.
Correctness and testing
Includes coverage of asserts, contracting, integer correctness, tracing, and unit testing.
Supports of a wide range of data structures, including maps, containers, heaps, JSON, optional objects, pointers, polygons, properties, and stacks.
Covers date and time utilities, cyclic redundancy code (CRC), unit analysis, and unique identifiers.
Error handling and recovery
Covers asserts, error reporting and handling, and an infrastructure for throwing exceptions.
Function objects and higher-order programming
Covers binding, function wrapping, function overloading, lambda functions, generic functions, and callback functions.
A range of generalized libraries, including for passing parameters, function template overloads, handling operators and iterators, generic types and templates, parallel extensions.
A single library for generic image processing.
Features include portable networking, conversions for correct byte ordering, formatting, streams, JSON, serialization, and URL parsing.
A single library providing a framework for interfacing Python with C++.
Covers iterations in images, graphs, arithmetic classes, and tokens.
Language Features Emulation
Covers language features such as reflection, exceptions, semantics, deterministic failure, parameters, scope, types, and typeof.
Math and numerics
Covers many math issues, such as statistics, types and conversions, geometry, histograms, trigonometry, common factors, Octonions, Quaternions, n-dimensional arrays, equations, operators, polygons, vectors, matrices, random numbers, ratios, rational numbers, safe integers, and linear algebra.
Memory functions including for alignment, allocators, traits, pool management, smart pointers, non-copyable classes.
Libraries providing a parsing framework, covering grammars, primitives, directives, and other language features.
Covers design patters, empty member optimization, deterministic failure, callbacks non-copyable classes.
Covers macro parameters, repetition, recursion, macro data.
Covers object wrappers for deferred calls or callbacks, deterministic failure, parameters, Python bindings, error reporting.
Covers high-performance and arbitrarily complex finite state machines.
String and text processing
Covers type conversion, string formatting, streams, localization, regular expressions, parsing, string algorithms, tokens.
Time utilities, context switching, handling libraries, threads, a smart file system, processes, backtraces, errors.
Libraries to support the development of libraries, with features such as callable traits, reflection, function types, tuples, higher-order functions, parsing, sequences, metafunctions, static assertions, introspection, properties, expressions.
Libraries for numerical type and text conversion, byte ordering, logging, swapping, timing, initialization, and other utilities.
The purpose of the Boost libraries is to evangelize and support C++ development. You can take advantage of thousands of lines of high performance code.
If you are new to Boost, the recommended next step is to download the entire library for your selected OS, and build a few small sample programs.