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 unique_ptr to uniquely own a memory resource

Manual handling of heap memory allocation and releasing it is one of the most controversial features of C++. All allocations must be properly paired with a corresponding delete operation in the correct scope. If the memory allocation is done in a function and needs to be released before the function returns, for instance, then this has to happen on all the return paths, including the abnormal situation where a function returns because of an exception. C++11 features, such as rvalues and move semantics, have enabled the development of smart pointers; these pointers can manage a memory resource and automatically release it when the smart pointer is destroyed. In this recipe, we will look at std::unique_ptr, a smart pointer that owns and manages another object or an array of objects allocated on the heap, and performs the disposal operation when the smart pointer goes out of scope.

Getting ready

In the following examples...