ISO/IEC 14882

ISO/IEC 14882:2003, "Programming Languages &mdash; C++", developed and published by ISO (under the auspices of the JTC 1/SC 22/WG 21 working group), is the current version of the C++ standard. ISO/IEC 14882 defines the C++ language, its standard library, and requirements for implementations of the language. It was originally published in 1998 (14882:1998), and revised in 2003. The standard is currently undergoing revision for the next version, dubbed "C++0x" (its exact release date being unknown).

The standard has been ratified by several national standards bodies, including ANSI (the American National Standards Institute) and British Standards, who at one point published a hardcopy version of the standard (although this seems to be no longer available). Although the C programming language was originally standardised by ANSI and later ratified by ISO, and so is often referred to as "ANSI C", C++ is more correctly referred to as "ISO C++" (not ANSI C++), or simply "Standard C++".

Prior to the publication of the standard, the de-facto standards for the language were The C++ Programming Language 1ed. (Stroustrup 1985) and the C++ Annotated Reference Manual (Ellis & Stroustrup 1989).