The Standard Template Library architecture
The C++ Standard Template Library (STL) offers ready-made generic containers, algorithms that can be applied to the containers, and iterators to navigate the containers. The STL is implemented with C++ templates, and templates allow generic programming in C++.
The STL encourages a C++ developer to focus on the task at hand by freeing up the developer from writing low-level data structures and algorithms. The STL is a time-tested library that allows rapid application development.
The STL is an interesting piece of work and architecture. Its secret formula is compile-time polymorphism. To get better performance, the STL avoids dynamic polymorphism, saying goodbye to virtual functions. Broadly, the STL has the following four components:
- Algorithms
- Functors
- Iterators
- Containers
The STL architecture stitches all the aforementioned four components together. It has many commonly used algorithms with performance guarantees. The interesting part about STL algorithms...
