The repository contains the Abseil C library code. Abseil is an open-source collection of C code (compliant to C 11) designed to augment the C standard library.

• About Abseil
• Quickstart
• Building Abseil
• Codemap
• License
• Links

Abseil is an open-source collection of C library code designed to augment the C standard library. The Abseil library code is collected from Google's own C code base, has been extensively tested and used in production, and is the same code we depend on in our daily coding lives.

In some cases, Abseil provides pieces missing from the C standard; in others, Abseil provides alternatives to the standard for special needs we've found through usage in the Google code base. We denote those cases clearly within the library code we provide you.

Abseil is not meant to be a competitor to the standard library; we've just found that many of these utilities serve a purpose within our code base, and we now want to provide those resources to the C community as a whole.

If you want to just get started, make sure you at least run through the Abseil Quickstart. The Quickstart contains information about setting up your development environment, downloading the Abseil code, running tests, and getting a simple binary working.

Bazel is the official build system for Abseil, which is supported on most major platforms (Linux, Windows, macOS, for example) and compilers. See the quickstart for more information on building Abseil using the Bazel build system.

If you require CMake support, please check the CMake build instructions.

Abseil contains the following C library components:

• base Abseil Fundamentals
  The base library contains initialization code and other code which all other Abseil code depends on. Code within base may not depend on any other code (other than the C standard library).
• algorithm
  The algorithm library contains additions to the C <algorithm> library and container-based versions of such algorithms.
• container
  The container library contains additional STL-style containers, including Abseil's unordered "Swiss table" containers.
• debugging
  The debugging library contains code useful for enabling leak checks, and stacktrace and symbolization utilities.
• hash
  The hash library contains the hashing framework and default hash functor implementations for hashable types in Abseil.
• memory
  The memory library contains C 11-compatible versions of std::make_unique() and related memory management facilities.
• meta
  The meta library contains C 11-compatible versions of type checks available within C 14 and C 17 versions of the C <type_traits> library.
• numeric
  The numeric library contains C 11-compatible 128-bit integers.
• strings
  The strings library contains a variety of strings routines and utilities, including a C 11-compatible version of the C 17 std::string_view type.
• synchronization
  The synchronization library contains concurrency primitives (Abseil's absl::Mutex class, an alternative to std::mutex) and a variety of synchronization abstractions.
• time
  The time library contains abstractions for computing with absolute points in time, durations of time, and formatting and parsing time within time zones.
• types
  The types library contains non-container utility types, like a C 11-compatible version of the C 17 std::optional type.
• utility
  The utility library contains utility and helper code.

The Abseil C library is licensed under the terms of the Apache license. See LICENSE for more information.

For more information about Abseil:

• Consult our Abseil Introduction
• Read Why Adopt Abseil to understand our design philosophy.
• Peruse our Abseil Compatibility Guarantees to understand both what we promise to you, and what we expect of you in return.