I suggest you read annex D, section 1.5. There are many web sites that explain it as well, such as:

http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/ansi/hfiles.html (toward the bottom of the page)

Every C header, each of which has a name of the form name.h, behaves as if each name placed in the Standard library namespace by the corresponding cname header is also placed within the namespace scope of the namespace std and is followed by an explicit using-declaration

[Example: The header cstdlib provides its declarations and definitions within the namespace std. The header stdlib.h makes these available in the global name space, much as in the C Standard.

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In other words, if you are ansi compliant, you have to support them. It is not "going against the standard".



[edited by - DerekZahn on June 4, 2004 12:52:49 PM]