C++ for the Impatient

Preface xix
Acknowledgments xxvii

About the Author xxix







Chapter 1: C++ Fundamentals 1

1.1 Elements of a C++ Program 1

1.2 Dealing with "Flashing Console" 4

1.3 Working with Microsoft Visual Studio 5

1.4 Doing More with C++ 6

1.5 Adding Simple Variable Declarations 7

1.6 Introduction to C++ Control Structures 10

1.6.1 Making Decisions with "if" 11

1.6.2 Looping with "while" 13

1.7 General Structure of a C++ Program 14

1.8 More about Namespaces 15

1.9 Some Comments about Comments 17

1.9.1 C++ Comments (Line Comments) 17

1.9.2 C-Language-Style Comments 17

1.10 Sample App: Adding Machine 19

Exercises 20

1.11 Sample App: Calculating Phi 20

Exercises 23



Chapter 2: Data 25

2.1 Declaring Simple Variables 25

2.2 Primitive Data Types 27

2.3 Symbolic Names ("Symbols") 30

2.4 Numeric Literals 31

2.5 Mixing Numeric Types 33

2.5.1 Integer versus Floating Point 34

2.5.2 bool versus Integer Types 34

2.5.3 Signed versus Unsigned Integers 35

2.6 String and Character Literals 39

2.6.1 Single-Quoted Characters 39

2.6.2 Double-Quoted Strings 40

2.6.3 Special Characters (Escape Sequences) 41

2.6.4 Wide-Character Strings 45

2.6.5 Raw String Literals (C++11) 46

2.7 Data Declarations: The Complete Syntax 46

2.8 Enumerated Types 50

2.9 Special Declarations (typedef, auto, decltype) 52

2.9.1 The typedef Keyword 52

2.9.2 The auto and decltype Keywords (C++11) 53

2.10 Sample App: Type Promotion 54

Exercises 55



Chapter 3: Operators 57

3.1 Precedence, Associativity, and Lvalues 57

3.2 Concise Summary of Operators 59

3.3 Operators in Detail 62

3.4 The Great Controversy: Postfix or Prefix? 77

3.5 Bitwise Operators in Detail 78

3.6 Cast Operators 82

Exercises 90



Chapter 4: Control Structures 91

4.1 Concise Summary of C++ Statements 91

4.2 Null Statements (;) and Expression Statements 93

4.3 Compound Statements 94

4.4 if and if-else Statements 96

4.5 while and do-while Statements 98

4.6 for Statements 99

4.7 Range-based for Statements (C++11) 101

4.8 switch Statements 103

4.9 Jump Statements (break, continue, goto) 104

4.10 Exception Handling (try, catch) 106

4.11 Sample App: Guess-the-Number Game 111

Exercises 113

4.12 Sample App: Computer Guesses the Number 113

Exercises 115



Chapter 5: Functions 117

5.1 Overview of Traditional (Named) Functions 117

5.2 Local and Global Variables 122

5.3 Complete Function Declaration Syntax 124

5.4 Function Overloading 126

5.5 Arguments with Default Values 128

5.6 Variable-Length Argument Lists 129

5.7 Lambda, or Anonymous, Functions (C++11) 131

5.8 constexpr Functions (C++11) 141

5.9 Sample App: Odds at Dice 142

Exercises 145



Chapter 6: Pointers, Arrays, and References 147

6.1 References 147

6.2 Arrays 152

6.3 Pointers 159

6.4 Complex Declarations Involving Pointers 175

6.5 Passing and Returning Function Pointers 178

6.6 Smart Pointers (C++11) 180

6.7 Sample App: Sieve of Eratosthenes 186

Exercises 188



Chapter 7: Classes and Objects 189

7.1 Overview: Structures, Unions, and Classes 189

7.2 Basic Class Declaration Syntax 191

7.3 Constructors 205

7.4 Destructors 216

7.5 The Hidden "this" Pointer 217

7.6 Operator Functions (Op Overloading) 218

7.7 Deriving Classes (Subclassing) 229

7.8 Bit Fields 240

7.9 Unions 242

7.10 Sample App: Packed Boolean 245

Exercises 248



Chapter 8: Preprocessor Directives 249

8.1 General Syntax of Preprocessor Directives 249

8.2 Summary of Preprocessor Directives 250

8.3 Using Directives to Solve Specific Problems 254

8.3.1 Creating Meaningful Symbols with #define 254

8.4 Preprocessor Operators 259

8.5 Predefined Macros 260

8.6 Creating Project Header Files 263



Chapter 9: Creating and Using Templates 265

9.1 Templates: Syntax and Overview 265

9.2 Function Templates 267

9.3 Class Templates 272

9.4 Class Templates with Member Functions 276

9.4.1 Class Templates with Inline Member Functions 276

9.4.2 Class Templates with Separate Function Definitions 276

9.5 Using Integer Template Parameters 278

9.6 Template Specialization 279

9.7 Variadic Templates (C++11) 281

9.8 Sample App: Type Promotion, v 2 288

Exercises 289



Chapter 10: C-String Library Functions 291

10.1 Overview of the C-String Format 291

10.2 Input and Output with C-Strings 293

10.3 C-String Functions 294

10.4 String Tokenizing with strtok 300

10.5 Individual-Character Functions 301

10.6 Memory-Block Functions (memcpy, and so on) 304

10.7 Wide-Character Functions (wstrcpy, and so on) 306



Chapter 11: C I/O Library Functions 309

11.1 Overview of C Library I/O 309

11.2 Console I/O Functions 310

11.3 Print/Scan Formats 313

11.4 Input and Output to Strings 321

11.5 File I/O 321



Chapter 12: Math, Time, and Other Library Functions 333

12.1 Trigonometric Functions 333

12.2 Other Math Functions 336

12.3 The C Date and Time Library 339

12.4 String-to-Number Conversions 347

12.5 Memory-Allocation Functions 348

12.6 Standard C Randomization Functions 350

12.7 Searching and Sorting Functions 351

12.8 Other Standard C Library Functions 355

12.9 Sample App: Idiot Savant 358

Exercises 359



Chapter 13: C++ I/O Stream Classes 361

13.1 The Basics of C++ I/O Streams 361

13.2 Reading a Line of Input with getline 364

13.3 The C++ Stream-Class Hierarchy 366

13.4 Stream Objects: Manipulators and Flags 368

13.5 Stream Member Functions (General Purpose) 379

13.6 File Stream Operations 385

13.7 Reading and Writing String Streams 395

13.8 Overloading Shift Operators for Your Classes 398

13.9 Sample App: Text File Reader 400

Exercises 401



Chapter 14: The C++ STL String Class 403

14.1 Overview of the String Class 403

14.2 String Class Constructors 405

14.3 String Class Operators 406

14.4 Concise Summary of Member Functions 410

14.5 Member Functions in Detail 410

14.6 String Class Iterators 424

14.7 Wide-Character String Class (basic_string) 430



Chapter 15: Introduction to STL (vector, deque) 431

15.1 A Tour of the Container Templates 431

15.2 Introduction to Iterators 433

15.3 The vector Template 434

15.4 The deque Template 447

15.5 The bitset Template 458

15.5.1 bitset Constructors 459

15.6 Sample App: Alpha File Organizer 461

Exercises 463



Chapter 16: STL Sequence Containers (List) 465

16.1 Sorting Elements (Strict Weak Ordering) 465

16.2 The list Template 466

16.2.3 Concise Summary of list Functions 471

16.2.4 List Member Functions in Detail 472

16.3 The stack Template 481

16.4 The queue Template 484

16.5 The priority_queue Template 487

16.6 Sample App: Find the Median 491

Exercises 493



Chapter 17: STL Associated Containers (map, set) 495

17.1 The pair Template 495

17.2 The map Template 497

17.3 The set Template 518

17.4 The multimap Template 529

17.5 The multiset Template 532

17.6 Unordered Containers (C++11) 534

17.7 Sample App: Guess-the-Word Game 543

Exercises 545



Chapter 18: STL Algorithms 547

18.1 STL Algorithms: General Concepts 547

18.2 Using Lambda Functions (C++11) 550

18.3 Algorithms and Iterators 551

18.4 Insert Iterators 553

18.5 Sample App: Finding the Median 555

18.6 Concise Summaries of Algorithms 556

18.7 Detailed Descriptions of Algorithms 564



Chapter 19: C++11 Randomization Library 599

19.1 Issues in Randomization 599

19.2 A Better Randomization Scheme 601

19.3 Common Engines 604

19.4 Common Distributions 605

19.5 Operations on Engines 608

19.6 Operations on Distributions 609

19.7 Sample App: Dice Game 610

Exercises 612



Chapter 20: C++11 Regular-Expression Library 613

20.1 Overview of C++11 Regular Expressions 613

20.2 Dealing with Escape Sequences (AE) 616

20.3 Constructing a RegEx String 618

20.4 Matching and Searching Functions 624

20.5 "Find All," or Iterative, Searches 626

20.6 Replacing Text 628

20.7 String Tokenizing 630

20.8 Catching RegEx Exceptions 631

20.9 Sample App: RPN Calculator 632

Exercises 635



Appendix A: A Painless Introduction to Rvalue References (C++11) 637

A.1 The Trouble with Copying 637

A.2 Move Semantics: C++11 to the Rescue! 640

A.3 Rvalue Refs in a User's String Class 642

A.4 Verifying Runtime-Performance Improvement 645

A.5 Rvalues and Contained Objects 646

A.6 References Reconsidered: Rvalues and Lvalues 646




Appendix B: Summary of New Features in C++11 649

B.1 Improvements in Object Construction 649

B.2 Other Core-Language Enhancements 650

B.3 Other New Keywords 651

B.4 Extensions to the Standard Library 652




Appendix C: ASCII Codes 655



Index 659