C++ Standard Library, The: A Tutorial and Reference, 2nd Edition

Chapter 5. Utilities

This chapter describes the general utilities of the C++ standard library. These utilities are small and simple classes, types, or functions that perform frequently needed tasks:

• Class pair<> and class tuple<>

• Smart pointer classes (class shared_ptr<> and class unique_ptr)

• Numeric limits¹

¹ One could argue that numeric limits and class ratio<> should be part of Chapter 17, which covers numerics, but these classes are used in some other parts of the library, so I decided to describe them here.

• Type traits and type utilities

• Auxiliary functions (for example, min(), max(), and swap())

• Class ratio<>¹

• Clocks and timers

• Some important C functions

Most, but not all, of these utilities are described in clause 20, “General ...