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Why is the C++ standard library bundled with the compiler instead of the os?

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c++

c

I am sorry if this is a naive question, but there's something I can't get my head around.

Why is the C++ standard library bundled with different compiler implementations (g++'s libstdc++ and clang's libc++) instead of coming bundled with a (UNIX-like) Operating System, just as, say the C standard library does? Why isn't it maintained alongside the C library, considering that it's a superset of it?

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NlightNFotis Avatar asked Jun 17 '14 18:06

NlightNFotis

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2 Answers

The basic reason is that there is no standard C++ ABI -- every compiler tends to have its own ABI that is different from and incompatible with that of other compilers. On the other hand, most OSes define a standard C ABI that they use and supply a standard C library for, and all C compilers for that OS support that ABI.

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Chris Dodd Avatar answered Sep 21 '22 07:09

Chris Dodd

Operating systems in general do not support languages. They only support for their own system calls. In most operating systems this support is provided as part of the C library because C has the lowest level linkage. Other languages and runtimes (such as C++, python, etc) build their runtime support on top of the OS's system call support library.

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Variable Length Coder Avatar answered Sep 23 '22 07:09

Variable Length Coder
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