C++ @ Mapbox

The C++ language and projects built on top of it are essential to the Mapbox platform. This is the place to start for developing and deploying C++ at Mapbox. You'll find information about best-practices, gotchas, and helpful libraries/resources for beginning to develop in C++.

Table of contents

• General C++ Setup @ Mapbox (standard compilers & libraries)
• Packaging (Mason, deploying code)
• Node.js addons (writing C++ for Node.js modules)
• Code coverage
• Troubleshooting (profiling, debugging)
• External learning resources (skeleton libraries, reading, videos)
• Glossary
• FAQ (and things that have no home)

Guides

• Structural metaprogramming
• Strong types

Active C++ projects at Mapbox

• Map rendering with Mapbox GL Native, the core codebase shared between all of the native frontend SDKs, some of which are also in C++ like Qt, and the macOS SDK or iOS, which is in Objective-C++ (a hybrid language).
• Mapbox directions is based on OSRM
• Mapbox geocoding uses carmen-cache for indexes
• Mapbox tile services use Mapnik and node-mapbox-gl-native
• Mapbox scripts for processing OSM are often based on libosmium. Minjur creates geojson and tippecanoe creates vector tiles for OSM QA tiles.
• Mapbox Vector Tile encoding, decoding, and analysis tools: lib-vector-tile, protozero, vtzero, mapnik-vector-tile, vtvalidate, vtquery