Book Image

Modern C++ Programming Cookbook - Second Edition

By : Marius Bancila
5 (1)
Book Image

Modern C++ Programming Cookbook - Second Edition

5 (1)
By: Marius Bancila

Overview of this book

C++ has come a long way to be one of the most widely used general-purpose languages that is fast, efficient, and high-performance at its core. The updated second edition of Modern C++ Programming Cookbook addresses the latest features of C++20, such as modules, concepts, coroutines, and the many additions to the standard library, including ranges and text formatting. The book is organized in the form of practical recipes covering a wide range of problems faced by modern developers. The book also delves into the details of all the core concepts in modern C++ programming, such as functions and classes, iterators and algorithms, streams and the file system, threading and concurrency, smart pointers and move semantics, and many others. It goes into the performance aspects of programming in depth, teaching developers how to write fast and lean code with the help of best practices. Furthermore, the book explores useful patterns and delves into the implementation of many idioms, including pimpl, named parameter, and attorney-client, teaching techniques such as avoiding repetition with the factory pattern. There is also a chapter dedicated to unit testing, where you are introduced to three of the most widely used libraries for C++: Boost.Test, Google Test, and Catch2. By the end of the book, you will be able to effectively leverage the features and techniques of C++11/14/17/20 programming to enhance the performance, scalability, and efficiency of your applications.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
13
Bibliography
14
Other Books You May Enjoy
15
Index

Using std::span for contiguous sequences of objects

In C++17, the std::string_view type was added to the standard library. This is an object that represents a view over a constant contiguous sequence of characters. The view is typically implemented with a pointer to the first element of the sequence and a length. Strings are one of the data types that are most used in any programming language, and having a non-owning view that does not allocate memory, avoids copies, and has some operations faster than std::string, which is an important benefit. However, a string is just a special vector of characters with operations specific for text. Therefore, it makes sense to have a type that is a view of a contiguous sequence of objects, regardless of their type. This is what the std::span class template in C++20 represents. We could say that std::span is to std::vector and array types what std::string_view is to std::string.

Getting ready

The std::span class template is available in...