Book Image

Hands-On Design Patterns with C++

By : Fedor G. Pikus
Book Image

Hands-On Design Patterns with C++

By: Fedor G. Pikus

Overview of this book

C++ is a general-purpose programming language designed with the goals of efficiency, performance, and flexibility in mind. Design patterns are commonly accepted solutions to well-recognized design problems. In essence, they are a library of reusable components, only for software architecture, and not for a concrete implementation. The focus of this book is on the design patterns that naturally lend themselves to the needs of a C++ programmer, and on the patterns that uniquely benefit from the features of C++, in particular, the generic programming. Armed with the knowledge of these patterns, you will spend less time searching for a solution to a common problem and be familiar with the solutions developed from experience, as well as their advantages and drawbacks. The other use of design patterns is as a concise and an efficient way to communicate. A pattern is a familiar and instantly recognizable solution to specific problem; through its use, sometimes with a single line of code, we can convey a considerable amount of information. The code conveys: "This is the problem we are facing, these are additional considerations that are most important in our case; hence, the following well-known solution was chosen." By the end of this book, you will have gained a comprehensive understanding of design patterns to create robust, reusable, and maintainable code.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)

Friend Factory

n this chapter, we are going to talk about making friends. We mean the C++ friends here, not friends of C++ (you find those in your local C++ users group). In C++, friends of classes are functions or other classes that are granted special access to the class. In that way, they are not so different from your friends. But C++ can just manufacture friends as needed, on demand!

The following topics will be covered in this chapter:

  • How do friend functions work in C++ and what do they do?
  • When should you use friend functions versus class member functions?
  • How to combine friends and templates
  • How to generate friend functions from templates