The Standard Template Library in C++

Introduction to the Standard Template Library

The C++ Standard Template Library (STL) is a vast topic we can’t discuss entirely in a small lesson. So here, we’ll compare it with the Java Collections Framework.

The STL mainly deals with three main components:

• Containers
• Algorithms
• Iterators

However, before getting too deep in STL, we’ll discuss templates. In C++, we use templates to create generalized functions and classes.

Why do we need generalized functions and classes? There are many reasons, but the biggest is that we can use any data type, such as integers, floating-point values, characters, etc., through generalized functions and classes. We can also use user-defined data.