Standard library

A standard library for a programming language is the library that is conventionally made available in every implementation of that language. In some cases, the library is described directly in the programming language specification; in other cases, the contents of the standard library are determined by more informal social practices in the programming community.

Depending on the constructs made available by the host language, a standard library may include:

• Subroutines
• Macro definitions
• Global variables
• Class definitions
• Templates

Most standard libraries include definitions for at least the following commonly used facilities:

• Algorithms (such as sorting algorithms)
• Data structures (such as lists, trees and hash tables)
• Interaction with the host platform, including input/output and operating system calls

Philosophies

Philosophies of standard library design vary widely. For example, Bjarne Stroustrup, designer of C++, writes:

What ought to be in the standard C++ library? One ideal is for a programmer to be able to find every interesting, significant, and reasonably general class, function, template, etc., in a library. However, the question here is not, "What ought to be in some library?" but "What ought to be in the standard library?" The answer "Everything!" is a reasonable first approximation to an answer to the former question but not the latter. A standard library is something every implementer must supply so that every programmer can rely on it.

This suggests a relatively small standard library, containing only the constructs that "every programmer" might reasonably require when building a large collection of software. This is the philosophy that is used in the C and C++ standard libraries.

By contrast, Guido van Rossum, designer of Python, has embraced a much more inclusive vision of the standard library; in the Python tutorial, he writes:

Python has a "batteries included" philosophy. This is best seen through the sophisticated and robust capabilities of its larger packages.

Van Rossum goes on to list libraries for processing XML, XML-RPC, email messages, and localization, facilities that the C++ standard library omits. This other philosophy is often found in Scripting languages (as in Python or Ruby) or languages that use a Virtual machine, such as Java or the .NET Framework languages.

Examples of standard libraries

• C standard library, for the C programming language
• C++ standard library, for the C++ programming language
• Standard Template Library (or STL), a sub-part of the C++ standard library
• Java Class Library (or JCL), for the Java programming language, and Java Platform
• Base Class Library (or BCL), for the .NET Framework
• Factor standard library, for the Factor programming language