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Boost provides free peer-reviewed portable C++ source libraries.
We emphasize libraries that work well with the C++ Standard Library. Boost libraries are intended to be widely useful, and usable across a broad spectrum of applications. The Boost license encourages both commercial and non-commercial use.
We aim to establish "existing practice" and provide reference implementations so that Boost libraries are suitable for eventual standardization. Ten Boost libraries are already included in the C++ Standards Committee's Library Technical Report ( TR1) as a step toward becoming part of a future C++ Standard. More Boost libraries will part of the upcoming TR2.
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Latest News
??? - Version 1.33.0
New Libraries
- iostreams: Framework for defining streams, stream buffers and i/o filters, from Jonathan Turkanis.
- functional/hash: A TR1 hash function object that can be extended to hash user defined types, from Daniel James.
- Pointer Container Library: Containers for storing heap-allocated polymorphic objects to ease OO-programming, from Thorsten Ottosen.
- Wave: Standards conformant implementation of the mandated C99/C++ preprocessor functionality packed behind an easy to use iterator interface, from Hartmut Kaiser.
Updated Libraries
- Assignment
Library: Support for Pointer Container
Library and new efficient functions
ref_list_of()andcref_list_of()for generating anonymous ranges. -
Date-Time Library:
- Added local time and time zone classes.
- Added format-based Input/Output facets.
- For a complete list of changes, see the library change history.
-
Graph Library:
Introduced several new algorithms and improved existing
algorithms:
- Experimental Python bindings, from Doug Gregor and Indiana University.
- floyd warshall all pairs shortest paths, from Lauren Foutz and Scott Hill.
- astar search, from Kristopher Beevers and Jufeng Peng.
- fruchterman reingold force directed layout, from Doug Gregor and Indiana University.
- biconnected components and articulation points, from Jeremy Siek, Janusz Piwowarski, and Doug Gregor.
- sequential vertex coloring has been updated, tested, and documented.
- gursoy atun layout, from Jeremiah Willcock and Doug Gregor of Indiana University.
- king ordering, from D. Kevin McGrath of Indiana University.
- cuthill mckee ordering has been recast as an invocation of breadth first search and now supports graphs with multiple components.
- dijkstra shortest paths now uses a relaxed heap [61] as its priority queue, improving its complexity to O(V log V) and improving real-world performance for larger graphs.
read graphviznow has a new, Spirit-based parser that works for all graph types and supports arbitrary properties on the graph, from Ron Garcia. The old, Bison-based GraphViz reader has been deprecated and will be removed in a future Boost release.write graphvizalso supports dynamic properties.-
subgraph:get_propertynow refers to the subgraph property, not the root graph's property. - See the history for additional changes and bug fixes.
-
Multi-index
Containers Library:
- New hashed indices.
- Added serialization support.
- For a complete list of changes, see the library release notes.
-
Program options
library:
- Option descriptions are now printed with word wrapping.
- Command line parser can bypass unregistered options, instread of throwing.
- Removed support for "implicit" (optional) values.
- New customization method 'command_line_parser::extra_style_parser'. Unlike 'additional_parser', allows the user to parse several tokens and return a vector of options, not just a single option.
- Work with disabled exceptions.
- Property Map
Library: Introduced the
dynamic propertiesclass, which provides dynamically-typed access to a set of property maps. -
Random Numbers: improved initialization for
mersenne_twister, algorithm by Makoto Matsumoto and Takuji Nishimura, implemented for Boost by Jens Maurer.
Note: All test vectors formersenne_twisters constructed or seeded without parameters or with a singleunsigned intparameter become invalid. - Range Library: Minor
addition of convenience functions to
iterator rangelikefront(), back()andoperator[](). -
Regex Library:
- Rewritten front end parser now supports (?imsx-imsx) constructs, plus lookbehind assertions and conditional expressions.
- Thin wrapper classes improve integration with MFC/ATL code.
- Full (optional) Unicode support via the ICU library.
- Signals Library: added slot blocking/unblocking, from Frantz Maerten. Huge improvements to signal invocation performance from Robert Zeh.
Acknowledgements
Douglas
Gregor managed this release.

