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, inline Declaration, 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: RAII, Class Hierarchy, Inheritance Attributes
• Class Constructor: Default Constructor, Delegate Constructor, explicit Keyword
• Copy Constructor
• Class Destructor
• Initialization and Defaulted Members: Initialization List, Uniform Initialization, 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
• 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 (fbusato@nvidia.com)
  Dept. of Computer Science, University of Verona (Italy) federico.busato@univr.it