Most c++ compilers define a constant named __cplusplus which indicates C++ 11 support. Hence you can write something like this (thanks Cygon for the SO reply)

#if __cplusplus <= 199711L #error This library needs at least a C++11 compliant compiler #endif [/cpp] On most g++, you can pass -std=c++11 to toggle C++ 11 support:

g++ -std=c++11 main.cpp

This is what I get when I try to output the __cplusplus constant with the flag set:

#include
using namespace std;

int main() {
cout << __cplusplus << endl; return 0; } [/cpp] [text] $ g++ -std=c++11 test.cpp $ ./a.out 201103 [/text] Visual C++ compiler version 2012 or above should come with near-complete C++ 11 support.