Book Image

The C++ Workshop

By : Dale Green, Kurt Guntheroth, Shaun Ross Mitchell
Book Image

The C++ Workshop

By: Dale Green, Kurt Guntheroth, Shaun Ross Mitchell

Overview of this book

C++ is the backbone of many games, GUI-based applications, and operating systems. Learning C++ effectively is more than a matter of simply reading through theory, as the real challenge is understanding the fundamentals in depth and being able to use them in the real world. If you're looking to learn C++ programming efficiently, this Workshop is a comprehensive guide that covers all the core features of C++ and how to apply them. It will help you take the next big step toward writing efficient, reliable C++ programs. The C++ Workshop begins by explaining the basic structure of a C++ application, showing you how to write and run your first program to understand data types, operators, variables and the flow of control structures. You'll also see how to make smarter decisions when it comes to using storage space by declaring dynamic variables during program runtime. Moving ahead, you'll use object-oriented programming (OOP) techniques such as inheritance, polymorphism, and class hierarchies to make your code structure organized and efficient. Finally, you'll use the C++ standard library?s built-in functions and templates to speed up different programming tasks. By the end of this C++ book, you will have the knowledge and skills to confidently tackle your own ambitious projects and advance your career as a C++ developer.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)

Seven Dynamic Variable Sins

The next seven exercises illustrate seven ways that misusing dynamic variables can destroy your program, either by sending it to the chaos of heap corruption or invoking the sudden thunderbolt of an operating system trap.

Several of the following exercises were contrived to print error messages and terminate the program. The specific message produced depends both on the C++ runtime system version, and on the operating system on which the program runs. There is no guarantee you will see the same error message, so each example also contains a description of what happens.

Exercise 41: Using a Dynamic Variable before Creating It

The first deadly dynamic variable sin is using a pointer to a dynamic variable before creating the dynamic variable. It should be obvious that dereferencing a pointer to invalid storage will cause undefined behavior, which may include a crash, or simply producing the wrong result.

Note

The complete code for the exercise...