Modern C++ Programming

C++11 / C++14 / C++17 / (C++20)

TOPICS

1. Introduction

• A Little History of C/C++ Programming Languages
• Areas of Application and Popularity
• C++ Philosophy
• Books and References
• The Course

2. Basic Concepts I - Fundamental Types

• Preparation: What compiler should I use?, What editor/IDE compiler should I use?, How to compile?
• Hello World: I/O Stream
• C++ Fundamental Types Overview: Arithmetic Types, Other Arithmetic Types, Pointer Type
• Conversion Rules
• Math Operators
• Integral Data Types: Fixed Width Integers, When Use Signed/Unsigned Integer?, Promotion, Truncation, Undefined Behavior
• Floating-point Types and Arithmetic: Normal/Denormal Values, Summary, Not a Number (NaN), Infinity, Properties
• Floating-point Issues: Floating-point Comparison, Catastrophic Cancellation

3. Basic Concepts II - Entities and Control Flow

• Enumerators
• struct, union, and Bitfield
• using, decltype, and auto
• Control Flow: if Statement, for Loop, switch, goto

4. Basic Concepts III - Memory Management

• Heap and Stack: Stack Memory, new, delete, Memory Leak
• Initialization: Uniform Initialization
• Pointers and References: Pointer, Address-of operator &, Reference
• const, constexpr, consteval, constinit
• Explicit Type Conversion: static_cast, const_cast, reinterpret_cast, Type Punning
• sizeof Operator

5. Basic Concepts IV - Functions and Preprocessing

• Declaration and Definition
• Functions: Pass by-Value, Pass by-Pointer, Pass by-Reference, Overloading, Default Parameters, Attributes
• Function Objects and Lambda Expressions: Function Pointer, Function Object (or Functor), Capture List, Other Features, Capture List and Classes
• Preprocessing: Preprocessors, Common Errors, Useful Macro, Stringizing Operator (#), #pragma and #error, Token-Pasting Operator (##), Variadic Macro

6. C++ Object Oriented Programming I

• C++ Classes
• Class Hierarchy: Access specifiers, Inheritance Access Specifiers
• Class Constructor: Default Constructor, Initializer List, Uniform Initialization, Delegate Constructor, explicit Keyword
• Copy Constructor
• Class Destructor
• Defaulted Members: Defaulted Constructor
• Class Keywords: this, static, const, mutable, using, friend, delete

7. C++ Object Oriented Programming II

• Polymorphism: virtual Methods, Virtual Table, override Keyword, final Keyword, Common Errors, Pure Virtual Method, Abstract Class and Interface
• Inheritance Casting and Run-time Type Identification
• Operator Overloading: Overview, Subscript Operator, Comparison Operator, Function Call Operator, Conversion Operator, Increment and Decrement Operators, Assignment Operator, Stream Operator, Operator Notes
• C++ Special Objects: Aggregate, Trivial Class, Standard-Layout Class, Plain Old Data (POD), Hierarchy

8. C++ Templates and Meta-programming I

• Function Templates: Overview, Template Parameters, Template Parameter - Default Value, Specialization, Overloading, auto Deduction
• Compile-Time Utilities: static_assert, decltype Keyword, using Keyword
• Type Traits: Overview, Type Traits Library, Type Manipulation, Type Relation and Transformation
• Template Parameters: Overview, Special Cases

9. C++ Templates and Meta-programming II

• Class Template: Class Specialization, Class + Function - Specialization, friend Keyword, Dependent Names, Template Variable
• Template Meta-Programming
• SFINAE: Substitution Failure Is Not An Error: Function SFINAE, Class SFINAE, Class + Function SFINAE
• Variadic Template: Folding Expression, Variadic Class Template

10. Translation Units

• Basic Concepts: Translation Unit, Local and Global Scopes
• Linkage: static and extern Keywords, Internal/External Linkage Example, Linkage of const and constexpr, Linkage of inline Functions/Variables
• Variables Storage: Storage Class, Storage Duration
• Dealing with Multiple Translation Units: One Definition Rule (ODR), Class in Multiple Translation Units, Global Constant
• Function Template
• Class Template
• Undefined Behavior and Summary
• #include Issues: Forward Declaration, Include Guard, Circular Dependencies, Common Linking Errors
• Namespace: Namespace Functions vs. static Methods, Namespace Alias, Anonymous Namespace, inline Namespace
• How to Compile: Compile Strategies, Compile with Libraries, Build Static/Dynamic Libraries, Find Dynamic Library Dependencies, Analyze Object/Executable Symbols

11. Code Conventions

• C++ Project Organization: Project Directories, Project Files, src/include directories
• Coding Styles and Conventions
• #include
• Macro and Preprocessing
• Namespace
• Variables
• Functions
• Structs and Classes
• Modern C++ Features
• Maintainability
• Naming and Formatting
• Code Documentation

12. Ecosystem

• Debugging: Assertion, Execution Debugging (gdb)
• Memory Debugging: valgrind
• Sanitizers: Address Sanitizer, Leak Sanitizer, Memory Sanitizers, Undefined Behavior Sanitizer
• Debugging Summary
• Code Checking and Analysis: Compiler Warnings, Static Analyzers
• Code Testing: Unit Test, Code Coverage, Fuzz Testing
• Code Quality: clang-tidy
• CMake
• Code Documentation: doxygen
• Code Statistics: Count Lines of Code, Cyclomatic Complexity Analyzer
• Other Tools: Code Formatting - clang-format, Compiler Explorer, Code Transformation - CppInsights, Code Autocompletion - TabNine/Kite, Local Code Search - ripgrep, Code Search Engine - searchcode/grep.app, Code Exploration - SourceTrail, Code Benchmarking - Quick-Bench, Font for Coding

13. Utilities

• I/O Stream: Manipulator, ofstream/ifstream
• Math Libraries
• Strings: std::string, Conversion from/to Numeric Values, std::string view, std::format
• Algorithm Library
• Random Number: Basic Concepts, C++ <random>, Seed, PRNG Period and Quality, Distribution Quasi-random
• Time Measuring: Wall-Clock Time, User Time, System Time
• Std Template Classes: std::pair, std::tuple, std::variant, std::optional, std::any
• Filesystem Library: Query Methods, Modify Methods

14. Containers, Iterators, and Algorithms

• Containers and Iterators
• Sequence Containers: std::array, std::vector, std::list, std::deque, std::forward_list
• Associative Containers: std::set, std::map
• Container Adaptors: std::stack, std::queue, std::priority_queue
• Implement a Custom Iterator: Semantic, Implement a Simple Iterator
• Iterator Utility Methods: std::advance, std::next, std::prev, std::distance, Range Access Methods, Iterator Traits
• Algorithms Library: std::find_if, std::sort, std::accumulate, std::generate, std::remove_if

15. Advanced Topics

• Move Semantic: lvalues and rvalues references, Move Semantic, Compiler Implicitly Declared, std::move
• Universal Reference and Perfect Forwarding: Universal Reference, Reference Collapsing Rules, Perfect Forwarding
• Value Categories
• Copy Elision and RVO
• Type Deduction: Pass-by-Reference, Pass-by-Pointer, Pass-by-Value
• const Correctness
• C++ Idioms: Rule of Zero/Three/Five, Singleton, PIMPL, CRTP, Template Virtual Functions
• Smart pointers: std::unique_ptr, std::shared_ptr, std::weak_ptr
• Concurrency: Thread Methods, Mutex, Atomic, Task-based parallelism

16. Optimization I

• General Concepts: Asymptotic Complexity, Optimization Cycle, Ahmdal Law, Performance Bounds, Arithmetic Intensity, Instruction-Level Parallelism, Little’s Law, Time-Memory Trade-off, Roofline Model
• I/O Operations: printf, Memory Mapped I/O, Speed Up Raw Data Loading
• Locality and Memory Access Patterns: Memory Hierarchy, Memory Locality, Internal Structure Alignment, External Structure Alignment
• Arithmetic: Data Types, Operations, Conversion, Floating-Point, Compiler Intrinsic Functions, Value in a Range, Lookup Table
• Control Flow: Loop Hoisting, Loop Unrolling, Branch Hints, Recursion
• Functions: Function Call Cost, Argument Passing, Function Optimizations, Inlining Constrains, Pointers Aliasing
• C++ Objects: C++ Objects Optimizations

17. Optimization II

• Compiler Optimizations: About the Compiler, Architecture Flags, Optimization Flags, Help the Compiler to Produce Better Code, Profile Guided Optimization (PGO)
• Compiler Transformation Techniques
• Libraries and Data Structures: External Libraries, Std Library
• Profiling: gprof, uftrace, callgrind, cachegrind, perf Linux profiler
• Performance Benchmarking: What to Test?, Workload/Dataset Quality, Cache Behavior, Stable CPU Performance, Program Memory Layout
• Parallel Computing: Concurrency vs. Parallelism, Performance Scaling, Gustafson’s Law, Parallel Programming Languages

Essential Tool

Online compiler and execution: CompilerExplorer

• for code execution: [Add new..] -> [execution only]

Reporting bugs and contributing

If you find any typos, conceptual errors, or sections to improve, please report them by writing directly to me or by using the issue panel

Author

Federico Busato

• Nvidia Corporation ([email protected])
• Dept. of Computer Science, University of Verona (Italy) [email protected]
• https://twitter.com/fedebusato
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/federico-busato/