Introduction to C++

Overview

This course provides a comprehensive introduction to programming in C++. A strong emphasis is placed on best practices for modern C++ development, including good OO design, using containers rather than arrays or char pointers and taking advantage of the latest C++ features and the Boost library.

Outline

Introduction to C++

• The history and evolution of C++
• Different generations of C++ developers
• Creating a basic program using streams
• Declaring and working with variables
• The pre-processor, compiler and linker
• Understanding pre-processor directives
• Placing declarations in header files
• Placing definitions in source files
• Compilation and linkage errors
• Using guards in header files

Namespaces

• How namespaces affect the scope of symbols
• Compiling against the std namespace
• Different forms of the using declaration
• Creating your own namespaces
• Working with nested namespaces
• Unnamed namespaces and static functions
• Defining an alias for a namespace

Types, Pointers and References

• Declaring and using arrays and structs
• Declaring and dereferencing pointers
• Working with pointers to arrays
• Working with pointers to structures
• Practical uses of pointers to pointers
• The const keyword and pointers
• Callbacks and function pointers
• Declaring and using references
• Mixing pointers and references

Storage Management

• Dynamically allocating memory
• The delete and delete [] operators
• Handling out of memory conditions
• The placement new operator
• Casting with static_cast, dynamic_cast, const_cast and reinterpret_cast
• Using smart pointer classes

Functions

• Function prototypes and definitions
• Overloading a function name
• Supplying default parameter values
• Resolving overloaded functions
• Explaining inline functions
• The const type-qualifier

Object Oriented Development Part 1

• Why use object-oriented programming?
• Creating a simple class declaration
• Passing objects by value and pointer
• Using forward references to classes
• Adding fields and methods to classes
• Working with static fields and methods
• Adding constructors to classes
• Copy and conversion constructors
• Providing an assignment operator
• Writing a destructor method

Object Oriented Development Part 2

• Declaring constructors as explicit
• Using initialiser lists in constructors
• Declaring methods as being constant
• Using inheritance to create class hierarchies
• Calling base constructors in derived objects
• Protected fields vs protected helper methods
• Implementing polymorphism with virtual methods
• Creating abstract and pure virtual base classes

Object Oriented Development Part 3

• Slicing derived objects during pass by value
• Problems associated with hiding base methods
• Overloading operators using methods
• Overloading operators using free functions
• Common issues with operator overloading
• Reasons for overloading new and delete

Exception Handling

• The syntax for exception handling
• Understanding stack unwinding
• Safely recovering from exceptions
• Built in exception classes
• Adding exception specifications
• The syntax for function try blocks
• When terminate() is called
• When unexpected() is called

Templates

• Creating Function Templates
• Overloading Function Templates
• Creating Class Templates
• Functors as template parameters
• Function templates as template parameters
• How Templates are instantiated
• Linkage issues with Templates
• Fully specializing Templates
• Partially specializing Templates
• Using traits and policy classes
• Code generation using Templates

The Standard Template Library

• The evolution of the STL
• Why std::string is a Template
• Traversing containers with iterators
• Using the sequential containers
• Using the associative containers
• Algorithms for searching containers
• Algorithms for changing containers

The Boost Library

• Creating and running Regular Expressions via Boost.Regex
• Manipulating text with Boost.String_algo and Boost.Tokenizer
• Building lambda expressions using Boost.Lambda
• Platform independent concurrency using Boost.Thread
• Test-Driven Development using Boost.Test
• Review of the smart pointers in Boost.Smart_ptr
• Review of the Boost libraries for meta-programming

Requirements

• Delegates must have existing programming experience, typically in C, Perl, Java or C#.
• Prior exposure to OO concepts and UML class and sequence diagrams is helpful but not essential.