Directory Layout and Source Conventions

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

+ 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 27_*]
+    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.
+