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)

The Curiously Recurring Template Pattern

We are already familiar with the concepts of inheritance, polymorphism, and virtual functions. A derived class inherits from the base class and customizes the behavior of the base class by overriding its virtual functions. All operations are done on an instance of the base class, polymorphically. When the base object is actually an instance of the derived class, the right customized overrides are called. The base class knows nothing about the derived class, which may not even have been written when the base class code was written and compiled. The Curiously Recurring Template Pattern (CRTP) turns this well-ordered picture on its head, and inside out.

The following topics will be covered in this chapter:

  • What is CRTP?
  • What is static polymorphism and how does it differ from the dynamic polymorphism?
  • What are the downsides of virtual function...