Book Image

C++ Fundamentals

By : Antonio Mallia, Francesco Zoffoli
Book Image

C++ Fundamentals

By: Antonio Mallia, Francesco Zoffoli

Overview of this book

C++ Fundamentals begins by introducing you to the C++ compilation model and syntax. You will then study data types, variable declaration, scope, and control flow statements. With the help of this book, you'll be able to compile fully working C++ code and understand how variables, references, and pointers can be used to manipulate the state of the program. Next, you will explore functions and classes — the features that C++ offers to organize a program — and use them to solve more complex problems. You will also understand common pitfalls and modern best practices, especially the ones that diverge from the C++98 guidelines. As you advance through the chapters, you'll study the advantages of generic programming and write your own templates to make generic algorithms that work with any type. This C++ book will guide you in fully exploiting standard containers and algorithms, understanding how to pick the appropriate one for each problem. By the end of this book, you will not only be able to write efficient code but also be equipped to improve the readability, performance, and maintainability of your programs.
Table of Contents (9 chapters)
C++ Fundamentals
Preface

Templates


Templates are a way to define functions or classes that can work for many different types, while still writing them only once.

They do so by having special kinds of parameters—type parameters.

When writing the template code, we can use this type parameter as if it were a real type, such as int or string.

When the templated function is called or the template class is instantiated, the type parameter is substituted with the real type that's used by the calling code.

Now let's look at an example of a template in C++ code:

template<typename T>
T max(T a, T b) {
  if(a>b) {
    return a;
  } else {
    return b;
  }
}

A template always starts with the template keyword, followed by the list of template parameters enclosed in angle brackets.

A template parameter list is a list of comma-separated parameters. In this case, we only have one—typename T.

The typename keyword tells the template that we are writing a templated function that uses a generic type, which we are going to name T...