The C++ Standard Library: A Tutorial and Reference

Chapter 3. General Concepts

This chapter describes the fundamental concepts of the C++ standard library that you need to work with all or most components:

• The namespace std

• The names and formats of header files

• The general concept of error and exception handling

• A brief introduction to allocators

Namespace std

If you use different modules and/or libraries, you always have the potential for name clashes. This is because modules and libraries might use the same identifier for different things. This problem was solved by the introduction of namespaces into C++ (see Section 2.2.4, for an introduction to the concept of namespaces). A namespace is a certain scope for identifiers. Unlike a class, it is open for extensions that might occur at any source. Thus, ...