Beginning C++ Programming

By : Richard Grimes

Beginning C++ Programming

By: Richard Grimes

Overview of this book

C++ has come a long way and is now adopted in several contexts. Its key strengths are its software infrastructure and resource-constrained applications, including desktop applications, servers, and performance-critical applications, not to forget its importance in game programming. Despite its strengths in these areas, beginners usually tend to shy away from learning the language because of its steep learning curve. The main mission of this book is to make you familiar and comfortable with C++. You will finish the book not only being able to write your own code, but more importantly, you will be able to read other projects. It is only by being able to read others' code that you will progress from a beginner to an advanced programmer. This book is the first step in that progression. The first task is to familiarize you with the structure of C++ projects so you will know how to start reading a project. Next, you will be able to identify the main structures in the language, functions, and classes, and feel confident being able to identify the execution flow through the code. You will then become aware of the facilities of the standard library and be able to determine whether you need to write a routine yourself, or use an existing routine in the standard library. Throughout the book, there is a big emphasis on memory and pointers. You will understand memory usage, allocation, and access, and be able to write code that does not leak memory. Finally, you will learn about C++ classes and get an introduction to object orientation and polymorphism.

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Free Chapter

Starting with C++

What will you find in this chapter?

What is C++?

Installing Visual C++

Examining C++ projects

Writing a simple project

Summary

Understanding Language Features

Writing C++

Using operators

Controlling execution flow

Using C++ language features

Summary

Exploring C++ Types

Exploring built-in types

Converting between types

Using C++ types

Summary

Working with Memory, Arrays, and Pointers

Using memory in C++

Using arrays

Using pointers in C++

Allocating memory in code

Memory and the C++ Standard Library

References

Using pointers in practice

Summary

Using Functions

Defining C++ functions

Using function parameters

Using functions in C++

Summary

Classes

Writing classes

Using objects with pointers

Templates

Using classes

Summary

Introduction to Object-Orientated Programming

Inheritance and composition

Introducing polymorphism

Using polymorphism

Summary

Using the Standard Library Containers

Working with pairs and tuples

Containers

Algorithms

Using the numeric libraries

Using the Standard Library

Summary

Using Strings

Using the string class as a container

Internationalization

Strings and numbers

Using stream classes

Using regular expressions

Using strings

Summary

Diagnostics and Debugging

Preparing your code

Application termination

Error values

C++ exceptions

Summary

Customer Reviews

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Working with pairs and tuples

In many cases you will want to associate two items together; for example, an associative container allows you to create a type of array where items other than numbers are used as an index. The <utility> header file contains a templated class called pair, which has two data members called first and second.

    template <typename T1, typename T2> 
    struct pair 
    { 
        T1 first; 
        T2 second; 
        // other members 
    };

Since the class is templated, it means that you can associate any items, including pointers or references. Accessing the members is simple since they are public. You can also use the get templated function, so for a pair object p you can call get<0>(p) rather than p.first. The class also has a copy constructor, so that you can create an object from another object, and a move constructor. There is also...

Beginning C++ Programming

By : Richard Grimes

Beginning C++ Programming

By: Richard Grimes

Overview of this book

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Beginning C++ Programming