Which STL is better??

There are several different providers for STL for use with MSVC.

STL Port
SGI
MS STL (comes with MSVC)

Is any of these better than the others?

I know with the MS STL, you have to set the complier to ignore
the complier warning C4786. Is this required with the other
STL?

Since MSVC already has STL, how would I access another
provider's header files? By putting the path to the other
provider's headers first in the include path?? (I certainly don't
want to try to delete the headers from the include directory.)

I'd say, it depends. The STL that comes originally with VC6 is not very good. The provider (Dinkumware) provides an upgrade for that STL though, which makes it pretty good. If you are using VC.NET, then I think there is no real need to change the STL implementation anymore.

Quote:

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Since MSVC already has STL, how would I access another
provider's header files? By putting the path to the other
provider's headers first in the include path?? (I certainly don't
want to try to delete the headers from the include directory.)

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Yes, you just specify the include path for the new STL prior to the original include files. With STLPort, you also have to change one of the headers in STLPort to match your configuration (and set any options), but that's not very involved.

Aha!

That's good information to known about Dinkumware.

Thanks for the info.

The only reason to change the STL implementation on newer compilers (e.g. VC.NET, gcc 3.x etc.) is to be able to use non-standard extensions (like hash_map) portably. There may be performance differences between different versions of the STL as well, but that only comes into play if you do notice problems with speed.

FYI...

The Dinkumware STL upgrade for MSVC 6.0 is a paid product. No
free upgrade here.

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Originally posted by cvogt61457
FYI...

The Dinkumware STL is a paid product. No free upgrade.

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Yes. The STL that comes with VC is from Dinkumware, but if you want to upgrade it, you have to pay again. That may be a reason to use STLPort, if you have VC6.

P.S. I'm using STLPort with VC6 and I'm pretty satisfied.

I've downloaded the STL Port and am going to try it out.

Thanks for the advice and help.

Just to answer this as well:

Quote:

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I know with the MS STL, you have to set the complier to ignore
the complier warning C4786. Is this required with the other
STL?

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Yes, you also have to disable this warning for other STLs. The basic problem is that templatized names get longer than 255 characters and VC6 has only space for 255 characters in its debug information. Well, it's not really a big problem anyways, just a tad annoying.

I have purchased the Dinkumware library just yesterday and tried to integrate it with my VS 6.0. It is utterly painful and confusing, you refer to their header files in the project and it throws tons of compilation errors about overloading and conflicts. I am highly dissapointed and considering an alternative replacement.
I heard the new MS SDK contains a full free version of the VC 7.0 which contains the Dinkumware library, is this trusted yet?

Thanks


Dhafir