Why does `include <iostream>` end up including so *many* files?

c++, include, iostream

Solution

No, `<iostream>` includes them because it depends on them directly, or it's dependancies depend on them.

Ain't nothing you can do about it.

You can (depending on your compiler) limit the effect this has on compilation times by using Precompiled Headers

Problem

Follow up of this question: When I do `include <iostream>`. It happens that it includes many files from `/usr/include` .A `grep "\usr\include"` over `g++ -E prog.cpp` counted to about 1260 entries ;). Is their a way to control including various files? Platform: Linux G++ version: 4.2.4

Original source