stb/docs/other_libs.md
2016-01-12 09:26:10 -08:00

10 KiB

Other single-file public-domain/open source libraries with minimal dependencies

In addition to all of my libraries, there are other, similar libraries.

People have told me about quite a few of these. However, I haven't used most of these libraries and can't comment on their quality. (If you use them and aren't their author, feel free to tell me about their quality.) Newest additions are in italics.

  • images jo_gif.cpp: animated GIF writer (public domain)
  • images gif.h: animated GIF writer (public domain)
  • images tiny_jpeg.h: JPEG encoder (public domain)
  • images miniexr: OpenEXR writer (public domain)
  • geometry nv_voronoi.h: find voronoi regions on lattice w/ integer inputs (public domain)
  • geometry sobol.h: sobol & stratified sampling sequences (public domain)
  • network zed_net: cross-platform socket wrapper (public domain)
  • strings; files & filenames DG_misc.h: Daniel Gibson's stb.h-esque cross-platform helpers: path/file, strings (public domain)
  • strings utf8: utf8 string library (public domain)
  • strings strpool.h: string interning (public domain/MIT)
  • misc MakeID.h: allocate/deallocate small integer IDs efficiently (public domain)
  • misc gb_string.h: dynamic strings for C (public domain)
  • misc loguru: flexible logging for C++ (public domain)
  • hardware EasyTab: multi-platform tablet input (public domain)

Not public domain:

  • images tinyexr: EXR image read/write (BSD license) uses miniz internally
  • images lodepng: PNG encoder/decoder (zlib license)
  • images nanoSVG: 1-file SVG parser; 1-file SVG rasterizer (zlib license)
  • 3D tinyobjloader: wavefront OBJ file loader (BSD license)
  • 2D blendish: blender-style widget rendering (MIT license)
  • math mm_vec.h: vector math (BSD license)
  • geometry sdf.h: compute signed-distance field from antialiased image (MIT license)
  • geometry nanoflann: build KD trees for point clouds (BSD license)
  • geometry jc_voronoi: find voronoi regions on float/double data (MIT license)
  • geometry par_msquares: convert (binarized) image to triangles (MIT license)
  • geometry tk_objfile: OBJ file loader (MIT license)
  • _geometry par_shapes: generate various 3d geometric shapes (MIT license)
  • network mm_web.h: lightweight webserver, fork of webby (BSD license)
  • network par_easycurl.h: curl wrapper (MIT license)
  • audio aw_ima.h: IMA-ADPCM audio decoder (MIT license)
  • multithreading mm_sched.h: cross-platform multithreaded task scheduler (zlib license)
  • parsing SLRE: regular expression matcher (GPL v2)
  • parsing PicoJSON: JSON parse/serializer for C++ (BSD license)
  • parsing mm_json.h: JSON parser (zlib license)
  • parsing mm_lexer.h: C-esque language lexer (zlib license)
  • tests utest: unit testing (MIT license)
  • tests catch: unit testing (Boost license)
  • tests SPUT: unit testing (BSD license)
  • misc lualite: generate lua bindings in C++ (MIT license)
  • misc tinyformat: C++ typesafe printf (Boost license)

There are some that have a source file and require a separate header file (which they may not even supply). That's twice as many files, and we at nothings/stb cannot condone this! But you might like them anyway:

  • images picopng.cpp: tiny PNG loader (zlib license)
  • images jpeg-compressor: 2-file jpeg compress, 2-file jpeg decompress (public domain)
  • 3D mikktspace: compute tangent space for normal mapping (zlib)
  • 2D tigr: quick-n-dirty window text/graphics for Windows (public domain)
  • 2D noc_turtle: procedural graphics generator (public domain)
  • geometry Tomas Akenine-Moller snippets: various 3D intersection calculations, not lib-ified (public domain)
  • geometry Clipper: line & polygon clipping & offsetting (Boost license)
  • geometry PolyPartition: polygon triangulation, partitioning (MIT license)
  • network yocto: non-production-use http server (public domain)
  • network happyhttp: http client requests (zlib license)
  • network mongoose: http server (GPL v2)
  • crypto TweetNaCl: high-quality tiny cryptography library (public domain)
  • AI micropather: pathfinding with A* (zlib license)
  • compression miniz.c: zlib compression,decompression, zip file, png writing (public domain)
  • compression lz4: fast but larger LZ compression (BSD license)
  • compression fastlz: fast but larger LZ compression (MIT license)
  • compression pithy: fast but larger LZ compression (BSD license)
  • profiling Remotery: CPU/GPU profiler Win/Mac/Linux, using web browser for viewer (Apache 2.0 license)
  • profiling MicroProfile: CPU (and GPU?) profiler, 1-3 header files (unlicense) uses miniz internally
  • parsing json.h: JSON parser (public domain)
  • parsing jzon.h: JSON parser, C++ (MIT license)
  • strings dfa: fast utf8 decoder (MIT license)
  • data structures klib: many 2-file libs: hash, sort, b-tree, etc (MIT license)
  • data structures uthash: several 1-header, 1-license-file libs: generic hash, list, etc (BSD license)
  • data structures PackedArray: memory-efficient array of elements with non-pow2 bitcount (WTFPL v2 license)
  • data structures; algorithms minilibs: two-file regex, binary tree (public domain)
  • files & filenames whereami: get path/filename of executable or module (WTFPL v2 license)
  • misc dbgtools: cross-platform debug util libraries (zlib license)
  • misc stmr: extract English word stems (MIT license)
  • misc levenshtein: compute edit distance between two strings (MIT license)
  • tests pempek_assert.cpp: flexible assertions in C++ (WTFPL v2 license)

There is also these XML libraries, but if you're using XML, shame on you:

There are some libraries that are just so awesome that even though they use more than two files we're going to give them special dispensation to appear in their own little list here. If you're a crazy purist, be warned, but otherwise, enjoy!

  • user interface ImGui: an immediate-mode GUI ("imgui") named "ImGui" (MIT license)

Also you might be interested in other related, but different lists:

  • clib: list of (mostly) small single C functions (licenses not listed)

List FAQ

Yes, you can just use this page. If you want a shorter, more readable link, you can use this URL to link to the FAQ question that links to this page.

Why isn't library XXX which is made of 3 or more files on this list?

I draw the line arbitrarily at 2 files at most. (Note that some libraries that appear to be two files require a separate LICENSE file, which made me leave them out). Some of these libraries are still easy to drop into your project and build, so you might still be ok with them. But since people come to stb for single-file public domain libraries, I feel that starts to get too far from what we do here.

Why isn't library XXX which is at most two files and has minimal other dependencies on this list?

Probably because I don't know about it, feel free to submit a pull request, issue, email, or tweet it at me (it can be your own library or somebody else's). But I might not include it for various other reasons, including subtleties of what is 'minimal other dependencies' and subtleties about what is 'lightweight'.

Why isn't SQLite's amalgamated build on this list?

Come on.