Directory Layout and Source Conventions
Prev | Appendix A. Contributing | Next

## Directory Layout and Source Conventions

The unpacked source directory of libstdc++ contains the files needed to create the GNU C++ Library.

It has subdirectories:
doc
Files in HTML and text format that document usage, quirks of the
implementation, and contributor checklists.
include
All header files for the C++ library are within this directory,
modulo specific runtime-related files that are in the libsupc++
directory.
include/std
Files meant to be found by #include <name> directives in
standard-conforming user programs.
include/c
Headers intended to directly include standard C headers.
[NB: this can be enabled via --enable-cheaders=c]
include/c_global
Headers intended to include standard C headers in
the global namespace, and put select names into the std::
namespace. [NB: this is the default, and is the same as
--enable-cheaders=c_global]
include/c_std
Headers intended to include standard C headers
already in namespace std, and put select names into the std::
namespace. [NB: this is the same as --enable-cheaders=c_std]
include/bits
Files included by standard headers and by other files in
the bits directory.
include/backward
Headers provided for backward compatibility, such as <iostream.h>.
They are not used in this library.
include/ext
Headers that define extensions to the standard library. No
standard header refers to any of them.
scripts
Scripts that are used during the configure, build, make, or test
process.
src
Files that are used in constructing the library, but are not
installed.
testsuites/[backward, demangle, ext, performance, thread, 17_* to 30_*]
Test programs are here, and may be used to begin to exercise the
library. Support for "make check" and "make check-install" is
complete, and runs through all the subdirectories here when this
command is issued from the build directory. Please note that
"make check" requires DejaGNU 1.4 or later to be installed. Please
note that "make check-script" calls the script mkcheck, which
requires bash, and which may need the paths to bash adjusted to
work properly, as /bin/bash is assumed.
Other subdirectories contain variant versions of certain files
that are meant to be copied or linked by the configure script.
Currently these are:
config/abi
config/cpu
config/io
config/locale
config/os
In addition, a subdirectory holds the convenience library libsupc++.
libsupc++
Contains the runtime library for C++, including exception
handling and memory allocation and deallocation, RTTI, terminate
handlers, etc.
Note that glibc also has a bits/ subdirectory. We will either
need to be careful not to collide with names in its bits/
directory; or rename bits to (e.g.) cppbits/.
In files throughout the system, lines marked with an "XXX" indicate
a bug or incompletely-implemented feature. Lines marked "XXX MT"
indicate a place that may require attention for multi-thread safety.

Prev | Up | Next
Appendix A. Contributing | Home | Coding Style