Explore the full potential of C++ by mastering the standard library.

Become a C++ Programmer

The C++ standard library is a collection of all the tools and utilities available in C++. It received its latest update in 2017, known as C++17. The update introduces many new features that further optimize our code. This module will help us fully grasp C++ and use it to its full potential.

C++ Standard Library

As C++11 has a lot of libraries, it is often not so easy to find the convenient one for each use case.

[Utilities](https://www.educative.io/courses/cpp-standard-library-including-cpp-14-and-cpp-17/utilities-in-cpp-standard-library) are libraries which have a general focus and therefore can be applied in many contexts.

# Calculating the Minimum and Maximum
Examples of utilities are functions to calculate the [minimum or maximum](https://www.educative.io/courses/cpp-standard-library-including-cpp-14-and-cpp-17/the-min-max-and-minmax-functions)  of values or functions to [swap](https://www.educative.io/courses/cpp-standard-library-including-cpp-14-and-cpp-17/swap) or [move](https://www.educative.io/courses/cpp-standard-library-including-cpp-14-and-cpp-17/move-vs-copy) values.

# Functional Programming
Other utilities are [std::function and std::bind](https://www.educative.io/courses/cpp-standard-library-including-cpp-14-and-cpp-17/std-bind-and-std-function). With `std::bind` you can easily create new functions from existing ones. In order to bind them to a variable and invoke them later, you have `std::function`.

# Pairs
With [`std::pair`](https://www.educative.io/courses/cpp-standard-library-including-cpp-14-and-cpp-17/pairs) and it's generalization [`std::tuple`](https://www.educative.io/courses/cpp-standard-library-including-cpp-14-and-cpp-17/tuples/) you can create heterogeneous pairs and tuples of arbitrary length.

# Reference Wrappers
The [reference wrappers](https://www.educative.io/courses/cpp-standard-library-including-cpp-14-and-cpp-17/introduction-m2G9E7pKBmG) `std::ref` and `std::cref` are pretty handy. One can use them to create a reference wrapper for a variable, which for `std::cref` is const. 

# Smart Pointers
Of course, the highlights of the utilities are the [smart pointers](https://www.educative.io/courses/cpp-standard-library-including-cpp-14-and-cpp-17/introduction-YQl7p8MqXpY). They allow explicit automatic memory management in C++. You can model the concept of explicit ownership with `std::unique_ptr` and model shared ownership with `std::shared_ptr`. `std::shared_ptr` uses reference counting for taking care of its resource. The third one, `std::weak_ptr`, helps to break the cyclic dependencies among `std::shared_ptr`s, the classic problem of reference counting.

# Type Traits
The [type traits](https://www.educative.io/courses/cpp-standard-library-including-cpp-14-and-cpp-17/introduction-7nA7550oor8) library is used to check, compare and manipulate type information at compile time.

# Multithreading
The [time library](https://www.educative.io/courses/cpp-standard-library-including-cpp-14-and-cpp-17/introduction-3jK8GR8NPl9) is an important addition of the new multithreading capabilities of C++. But it is also quite handy to make performance measurements.

# Values of Datatypes
With [std::any](https://www.educative.io/courses/cpp-standard-library-including-cpp-14-and-cpp-17/std-any), [std::optional](https://www.educative.io/courses/cpp-standard-library-including-cpp-14-and-cpp-17/std-optional), and  [std::variant](https://www.educative.io/courses/cpp-standard-library-including-cpp-14-and-cpp-17/std-variant), we get with C++17 three special datatypes that can have any, an optional value, or a variant of values respectively.

Now, let's talk about the components of the C++ Standard Library.

To use C++ to its full potential, we must use the multitude of utilities it provides.