Book Image

Modern C++ Programming Cookbook

By : Marius Bancila
Book Image

Modern C++ Programming Cookbook

By: Marius Bancila

Overview of this book

C++ is one of the most widely used programming languages. Fast, efficient, and flexible, it is used to solve many problems. The latest versions of C++ have seen programmers change the way they code, giving up on the old-fashioned C-style programming and adopting modern C++ instead. Beginning with the modern language features, each recipe addresses a specific problem, with a discussion that explains the solution and offers insight into how it works. You will learn major concepts about the core programming language as well as common tasks faced while building a wide variety of software. You will learn about concepts such as concurrency, performance, meta-programming, lambda expressions, regular expressions, testing, and many more in the form of recipes. These recipes will ensure you can make your applications robust and fast. By the end of the book, you will understand the newer aspects of C++11/14/17 and will be able to overcome tasks that are time-consuming or would break your stride while developing.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Title Page
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface

Using std::variant as a type-safe union


In C++, union is a special class type that, at any point, holds a value of one of its data members. Unlike regular classes, unions cannot have base classes nor can they be derived, and they cannot contain virtual functions (that would not make sense anyway). Unions are mostly used to define different representations of the same data. However, unions only work for types that are POD. If a union contains values of non-POD types, then these members require explicit construction with a placement new and explicit destruction, which is cumbersome and error-prone. In C++17, a type-safe union is available in the form of a standard library class template called std::variant. In this recipe, you will learn how to use it to model alternative values.

Getting ready

Although discriminated unions are not directly discussed in this recipe, being familiar with them will help understand better the design of, and the way variant works.

The class template std::variant was...