Book Image

Mastering the C++17 STL

By : Arthur O'Dwyer
Book Image

Mastering the C++17 STL

By: Arthur O'Dwyer

Overview of this book

Modern C++ has come a long way since 2011. The latest update, C++17, has just been ratified and several implementations are on the way. This book is your guide to the C++ standard library, including the very latest C++17 features. The book starts by exploring the C++ Standard Template Library in depth. You will learn the key differences between classical polymorphism and generic programming, the foundation of the STL. You will also learn how to use the various algorithms and containers in the STL to suit your programming needs. The next module delves into the tools of modern C++. Here you will learn about algebraic types such as std::optional, vocabulary types such as std::function, smart pointers, and synchronization primitives such as std::atomic and std::mutex. In the final module, you will learn about C++'s support for regular expressions and file I/O. By the end of the book you will be proficient in using the C++17 standard library to implement real programs, and you'll have gained a solid understanding of the library's own internals.
Table of Contents (13 chapters)

Automatically managing memory with std::unique_ptr<T>

The fundamental properties of a smart pointer type are simple: it should support operator*, and it should overload the special member functions to preserve its class invariants, whatever those are.

std::unique_ptr<T> supports the same interface as T*, but with the class invariant that, once you construct a unique_ptr pointing to a given heap-allocated object, that object will be freed when the destructor unique_ptr is called. Let's write some code supporting that T* interface:

    template<typename T>
class unique_ptr {
T *m_ptr = nullptr;
public:
constexpr unique_ptr() noexcept = default;
constexpr unique_ptr(T *p) noexcept : m_ptr(p) {}

T *get() const noexcept { return m_ptr; }
operator bool() const noexcept { return bool(get()); }
T& operator*() const noexcept...