Påbyggnadskurs i C++

Part-1 - Modern C++

Presentation of syntax and library for Modern C++.

Evolution of C++

Quick recap how C++ have evolved over the years and what we and others mean with the phrase “Modern C++”.

• Stroustrup
• Evolution of Classic C++
• Evolution of Modern C++
• What is Modern C++, anyway
• Recommended online resources

Syntax Enhancements in C++ 11/14/17

Presentation of the most important syntactic improvements of the language.

• Automatic type inference
• Java-style for-each loop
• Uniform initializer syntax
• Strongly types enums
• Compile time constant expressions
• Null pointer literal
• Unicode support
• Raw strings
• Multi-line strings
• Right-value references
• Move semantics

Lambda Expressions

The most exciting syntax enhancement in Modern C++ is without doubt, lambda expressions.

• What is a lambda expression
• Basic syntax
• Capture of local variables in the surrounding scope
• Writing functions that accept lambda expressions

Part-2 - C++ Language Topics

Review and discussion of common language topics.

More about Constructors & Members

Review of how to use constructors and declare class members.

• Constructor chaining
• Different ways of initialize member variables
• Friends
• Inline friend non-member functions
• Move constructor
• Move operator
• Understanding move-semantics
• Compiler generated members
• How to enforce a compiler generated member
• How to omit a compiler generated member
• Using override and final function modifiers
• Type conversion constructor
• How to prevent implicit type conversion
• Type conversion operator
• Base class visibility
• Default visibility of structs
• How to emulate Java style interfaces

More about Templates

Review of how to declare and use template functions and classes.

• What is a template
• Function templates
• Explicit type instantiation of functions
• Template classes
• Template methods
• Template parameters
• Template specialization
• Type aliases
• Type traits
• Using decltype()
• Variadic templates
• Recursive templates

More about Operator Overloading

Review of how to implement and use operator overloading.

• What is overloading operators
• Overloadable operators
• Cannot change the arity
• Cannot change the precedence
• Overloading of arithmetic operators
• Overloading of relational operators
• Overloading of increment operators
• Overloading of the index operator
• Overloading of the arrow operator
• Overloading of the function call operator

Heap Allocated Objects

Review of the new/delete operators and how to use the placement variant of new.

• The new & delete operators
• The new & delete operators for arrays
• The placement variant of new and how to use it
• Overloading new & delete for your own class

Part-3 - Standard Library

Presentation of the standard library in C++ 11/14/17.

Text Strings & Regexes

Discussions about the string class and how to work with regex objects.

• The std::string class
• String API
• Useful functions/operators
• Type conversion functions
• String search
• Character oriented functions
• What is SSO (Short String Optimization)
• Working with legacy C/C++ code, using text strings
• Raw strings
• Using a regex object
• Regex match operation
• Regex replace operation
• Implementing split and join for text strings and list of strings

Helper Types

Presentation of some minor but still useful classes.

• Using pair
• Using tuple
• Min/Max values of scalar types
• Math functions
• Complex numbers
• Numeric array
• Rational numbers
• The std::chrono types
• Durations
• Time units
• Time literals
• Clocks
• Random number generation
• Supported stochastic distributions
• Random number engines

STL Container Types

Presentation of all container types in the standar library.

• What is a sequence container
• Typical methods of a sequence container
• vector
• deque
• array
• list
• forward_list
• What is an associative container
• Implicit binary tree vs. hash table
• Typical methods of an associative container
• set
• unordered_set
• multiset
• map
• unordered_map
• What is a container adapter
• stack
• queue
• priority_queue
• Container block allocators
• User-defined allocator

STL Iterators & Intervals

Presentation of the important concept of an interval and how this is represented by two iterators.

• What is an iterator
• What is an interval
• Iterator categories
• (In/Out)put iterators
• Forward iterators
• Bidirectional iterators
• Random access iterators
• End-point adapters
• I/O iterators
• Iterator adaptors
• Using a back-inserter

STL Algorithms

Presentation of STL algorithms used to operator on intervals, hence containers.

• The STL architecture
• Overview of STL algorithms
• Different ways of providing the business logic to an algorithm function
• Understand function suffixes
• Using functions that take predicates
• Using the transform() function
• Using the accumulate() function
• Sorting
• Different ways to populate a container

I/O Streams & Files

Presentation of the stream sub-library.

• The streams abstraction in C++
• Class ostream, ofstream, ostringstream
• Class istream, ifstream, istringstream
• Manipulators
• Bi-directional binary I/O
• Stream position
• Stream status
• Understanding the typed input idiom
• The line-oriented input idiom
• The word-oriented input idiom
• The character-oriented input idiom

Part-4 - Idioms & Techniques

Discussion of some advanced topics of C++ usage.

Smart Pointers

Discussion and implementation of the smart pointer concept and presentation of the smart pointer support in the standard library.

• What is a smart pointer and which are the benefits
• Basic implementation
• Using a transfer class to make the compiler happy
• To delete or not delete, that’s question
• Different smart pointer concepts
• UniquePtr
• CopyPtr
• RefCountPtr
• Smart pointers in C++ 11
• unique_ptr
• shared_ptr
• weak_ptr

Common C++ Idioms

Discussion and implementation of a set of well-proven common idioms in C++.

• What is an idiom
• Understanding the for-each loop
• Supporting for-each in your own classes
• Implementation of class Range
• Implementation of class LineSlurper
• Understanding static initializers
• Supporting static initializers in your own classes
• Overriding the index operator
• How to differentiate between read and write for operator[]
• Understanding the RAII idiom
• Mutex locks
• Debug tracing

Translating C++ into C

Discussion of how C++ is represented internally and how you can see that C++ is just a thin compile-time layer around C.

• How the member variables of a class is represented
• How member functions are represented
• Understanding name-mangling
• How method invocation is represented
• How operators are represented
• How constructors/destructors are represented
• How class hierarchies are represented
• How virtual methods are represented and works in run-time
• How lambda expressions are represented
• How exceptions are represented

Standards & Guidelines

Presentation of the standardization work, and the official guidelines for Modern C++.

• The standardization process
• A new C++ standard every third year
• Online compilers and why they are of use
• The C++ Core Guidelines
• GSL - The Guidelins Support Library