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Asked: 2026-05-24T05:08:31+00:00

Is the C++ standard library tied to the compiler or can a different implementation

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Is the C++ standard library tied to the compiler or can a different implementation be provided?

I wonder about this mostly because it seems that the relation between the typeid keyword and std::type_info hinders this. The typeid keywords depends on the existence of std::type_info, which I would consider to be a dependency in the wrong direction. And I have no idea how a custom implementation should implement the type_info::name() method.

My questions are:

  • Is the standard library replaceable?
  • If yes, then how does one implement std::type_info
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Large parts of the library are independent of the compiler, like containers and algorithms.

    Other parts are very much tied to a specific compiler, like you have found – type_info where the library rather documents what the compiler does rather than prescribes it.

    Other similar examples might be bad_exception, std::size_t, and C++11 features like type_traits, atomics, and std::initializer_list, which all need support from the compiler. The library has to be closely matched to what a specific compiler actually does.

    It is possible to write a library that works with several compilers, but not without tuning some low level code to each specific compiler. The libraries mentioned elsewhere does exactly that.

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