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## Chapter 20. Boost.MultiArray Reference Manual

### Ronald Garcia

Indiana University
Open Systems Lab

Copyright © 2002 The Trustees of Indiana University

Boost.MultiArray is composed of several components. The MultiArray concept defines a generic interface to multidimensional containers. `multi_array` is a general purpose container class that models MultiArray. `multi_array_ref` and `const_multi_array_ref` are adapter classes. Using them, you can manipulate any block of contiguous data as though it were a `multi_array`. `const_multi_array_ref` differs from `multi_array_ref` in that its elements cannot be modified through its interface. Finally, several auxiliary classes are used to create and specialize arrays and some global objects are defined as part of the library interface.

## Library Synopsis

To use Boost.MultiArray, you must include the header `boost/multi_array.hpp` in your source. This file brings the following declarations into scope:

    namespace boost {

      namespace multi_array_types {
        typedef *unspecified* index;
        typedef *unspecified* size_type;
        typedef *unspecified* difference_type;
        typedef *unspecified* index_range;
        typedef *unspecified* extent_range;
        typedef *unspecified* index_gen;
        typedef *unspecified* extent_gen;
      }

      template <typename ValueType,
                std::size_t NumDims,
                typename Allocator = std::allocator<ValueType> >
      class multi_array;

      template <typename ValueType,
                std::size_t NumDims>
      class multi_array_ref;

      template <typename ValueType,
                std::size_t NumDims>
      class const_multi_array_ref;

      multi_array_types::extent_gen extents;
      multi_array_types::index_gen  indices;

      template <typename Array, int N> class subarray_gen;
      template <typename Array, int N> class const_subarray_gen;
      template <typename Array, int N> class array_view_gen;
      template <typename Array, int N> class const_array_view_gen;

      class c_storage_order;
      class fortran_storage_order;
      template <std::size_t NumDims> class general_storage_order;

    }