Standard Template Library

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The C++ Standard Template Library is a project that originally started at Silicon Graphics, and has formed the foundation API for most C++ distributions to date. The STL, as it is called, provides templatized tools for programming, designed specifically to leverage C++'s object-oriented nature. Most often used are the containers, such as Vectors, Stacks, queues, and other useful data structures. This is not, of course, the extent of the STL's features, however, most people consider them the most salient.

As a matter of connotation, more recently many programmers have been referring to the C++ Standard Template Library as really the combination of the STL proper and the existing C Standard Library.