The C++ Standard Library : A Tutorial and Reference

Programming with the C++ Standard Library can certainly be difficult, but Nicolai Josuttis's The C++ Standard Library provides one of the best available guides to using the built-in features of C++ effectively. The C++ Standard Library provides plenty of default functionality in the form of the Standard Template Library (STL) for containers (like vectors and linked lists), as well as generic algorithms (which allow you to sort, search, and manipulate elements inside containers). The best thing about The C++ Standard Library is that it gives the reader a concise guide to working with these basic containers (from lists to sets and maps, with everything in between). Each container type is explained along with short code excerpts. Moreover, in a reference section, the author explores the connections between each container type, showing how they share similar methods. (Learn just a few methods and you can pretty much work with them all.)