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I have being using stlport to develop wince based custom OS, but from now on I am thinking about using stl provided by windows. I read that functionally they are not different from each other so currently what matters is my image's size. Unfortunately I cannot give both of them a try like first use stl and make a run time image and then use stlport, then compare both images' sizes, because I have a lot of other problems that I need to solve in order to succesfully build the OS. Hence I wanted to get an expert idea:

Which one do you think would be more lightweight? I know how stlport is attached, loaded etc but I am not quite sure about STL. I looked into STL headers and all I saw were thousands of inline functions. But is that all? I need to be sure about it. Does STL link any other libraries inside or does it simply include the headers and use those inline functions?

Best

Ps: I am using VS2012 and working on wec2013

Ps2: I know what STL and stlport stands for and how to build an application by using them. My actual question is which one would consume less memory, use smaller size on HDD? (Considering things like stlport is a lib but stl is not etc.)

Xentius
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2 Answers2

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I assume that by STL you mean your compiler's standard library. This is a common misunderstanding, as STL was the original name of a library that was proposed and accepted into the language, but it has evolved from that. Taking this into account, the question becomes:

Should I use the standard library provided with my compiler or use stlport [or other alternatives]?

The answer is that it will depend on your use case, but the good thing is that as long as you use the library as defined in the standard (i.e. without extensions) then you should be able to easily switch from building with one or the other, and that means that you can test this yourself. You can also test building with different compiler flags. This is specially important in VS, as by default the library uses checked iterators, that are good for debugging but at the cost of extra memory and processing.

David Rodríguez - dribeas
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  • Yes by STL I was talking about my compiler's standard library and that is why I added a note about my Visual Studio version. I tried both of them and do not have any building problems caused by STL. I am more interested in STL and stlports's footprints. Which one would use less memory that is my main question actually. – Xentius Nov 27 '13 at 04:17
  • @Xentius It might be a good idea to stop using STL in that sense because it is a separate library, now abandoned. Microsoft never distributed an STL. – Potatoswatter Nov 27 '13 at 04:23
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    @Xentius: As I mentioned in the answer, there is no clear answer other than measure. I would expect that by default the memory and cpu needs of VS will be higher (checked iterators), but that if you disable those I would not bet one way or another. – David Rodríguez - dribeas Nov 27 '13 at 14:01
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    As far as I know, VS2010 and higher don't have checked iterators in Release mode per default, whereas VS2008 and lower do. [MSDN `_SECURE_SCL`](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa985896%28v=vs.100%29.aspx) – dyp Nov 27 '13 at 19:11
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STLPort is designed to be used on platforms that does not provide STL for some reasons (for example, embedded platforms without C++ exceptions support), or native STL support is outdated.

So, usually you do not need to replace native STL. There should be strong reasons to use STLPort in your project. In my experience, I used it for some embedded DSP platforms (no native STL), and for a UEFI platform (not really embedded, but no native STL as well, also runtime does not support C++ exceptions).

STLPort is highly customizable (you can disable exceptions, streams, etc), and can be used on almost any platform with basic C++ support.

qehgt
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