Modern C++ Programming

C++03 / C++11 / C++14 / C++17 / C++20 / C++23 / C++26

This open-access course is directed at those who are already familiar with C and object-oriented programming towards a proficiency level of C++ programming. The course covers the basics of C++ programming and moves on to advanced C++ semantics and concepts.

Key features:

• Free and frequently updated
• 26 lectures, 1800+ slides
• Include the last language standard concepts and features
• Practical teaching: non-verbose, short structured descriptions associated with code
• Minimal code examples for showing just a specific feature or issue without digressing
• Complementary language aspects: tools, coding conventions, project organization, and code optimization
• Experience-based: many aspects, examples, and problems come from real-world cases faced during my work as software engineer

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CHAPTERS

#	TITLE	MAIN FOCUS
1	Introduction (html)	History of C/C++, Areas of applications, Course introduction
2	Preparation (html)	Books, How to compile, Hello world
3	Basic Concepts I (html)	Type System, Fundamental types, and Operators
4	Basic Concepts II (html)	Integral and Floating-point types and their arithmetic
5	Basic Concepts III (html)	Entities, Enumerators, Structures, Control flow statements
6	Basic Concepts IV (html)	Heap, Stack, Pointers, References, Const properties, Conversion operators
7	Basic Concepts V (html)	Functions, Lambda expressions, Preprocessing directives
8	Object-Oriented Programming I (html)	Class hierarchy, Constructor, Destructor, Class keywords
9	Object Oriented Programming II (html)	Polymorphism, Operators overloading
10	Templates and Meta-programming I (html)	Function template, Type traits, Compile-time utilities
11	Templates and Meta-programming II (html)	Class template, SFINAE
12	Translation Units I (html)	Linkage and One Definition Rule
13	Translation Units II (html)	Dealing with multiple translation units and files,#include, Modules
14	Code Conventions I (html)	Project organization, code conventions intro, entities conventions
15	Code Conventions II (html)	Template, namespace, modern c++, maintainability , naming, and formatting conventions
16	Debugging and Testing (html)	Execution/memory debugging, Sanitizers, Harding techniques, Unit test, Test-Driven Development
17	Ecosystem (html)	Cmake, Documenting, and Other Tools
18	Utilities (html)	Main std libraries
19	Containers, Iterators, and Algorithms (html)	Containers, Iterators, Algorithms, Ranges
20	Advanced Topics I (html)	Move semantics, Universal reference, Type deduction
21	Advanced Topics II (html)	Error handling, C++ idioms, Smart pointers
22	Performance Optimizations I (html)	Ahmdal Law, Performance bounds, Architecture concepts (ILP, SIMD, etc.), Memory hierarchy
23	Performance Optimizations II (html)	Arithmetic optimizations, Memory optimizations, etc.
24	Performance Optimizations III (html)	Compiler optimizations, Profiling, Benchmarking tools
25	Software Design I (html)	Basic Concepts, Principles, Use cases
26	Software Design II (html)	Design Patterns and Idioms

ALL-IN-ONE BOOK: modern-cpp.pdf (could be a few commits behind), html

TOPICS IN DETAILS

1. Introduction

• A Little History of C/C++ Programming Languages
• Areas of Application and Popularity
• C++ Philosophy
• C++ Weakness: C++ alternatives, Why switching to a new language is hard?
• The Course

2. Preparation

• Books and References
• Slide Legend
• What Editor/ IDE/Compiler Should I Use?
• How to compile?
• Hello World: I/O Stream

3. Basic Concepts I - Type System, Fundamental Types, and Operators

• The C++ Type System: Type categories, Type properties
• C++ Fundamental Types Overview: Arithmetic types, Suffix and prefix, Non-standard arithmetic types, void type, nullptr
• Conversion Rules
• auto Keyword
• C++ Operators: Operators precedence, Prefix/Postfix increment/decrement semantic, Assignment, compound, and comma operators, Spaceship operator <=> , Safe comparison operators

4. Basic Concepts II - Integral and Floating-point Types

• Integral Data Types: Fixed width integers, size_t, ptrdiff_t, uintptr_t, Arithmetic Operation Semantics, Promotion, Truncation, Undefined behavior, Saturation Arithmentic
• Floating-point Types and Arithmetic: IEEE Floating-point standard and other representations, Normal/Denormal values, Infinity, Not a Number (NaN), Machine Epsilon, Units at the Last Place (ULP), Cheatsheet, Limits and useful functions, Arithmetic properties, Special values behavior, Undefined behavior, Detect floating-point errors
• Floating-point Issues: Catastrophic cancellation, Floating-point comparison

5. Basic Concepts III - Entities and Control Flow

• Entities
• Declaration and Definition
• Enumerators
• struct, Bitfield, union
• Control Flow: if statement, for and while loops, Range-base for loop, switch, goto, Avoid unused variable warning
• Namespace: Explicit global namespace, namespace alias, using-declaration, using namespace-directive, inline namespace
• Attributes: [[nodiscard]], [[maybe_unused]], [[deprecated]], [[noreturn]]

6. Basic Concepts IV - Memory Concepts

• Pointers: Pointer operations, Address-of operator &
• Heap and Stack: Stack memory, new, delete, Non-allocating placement allocation, Non-throwing allocation, Memory leak
• Initialization: Variable initialization, Uniform initialization, Array initialization, Structure initialization, Structure Binding, Dynamic memory initialization
• References
• Const and Constant Expressions: Contants and literals, const, constexpr, consteval, constinit, if constexpr, std::is constant evaluated(), if consteval
• volatile keyword
• Explicit Type Conversion: static_cast, const_cast, reinterpret_cast, Type punning, std::bit_cast, Uniform initialization conversion, gls::narrow_cast
• sizeof Operator: overview, [[no_unique_address]]

7. Basic Concepts V - Functions and Preprocessing

• Functions: Pass-by-value, Pass-by-pointer, Pass-by-reference, Function signature and overloading, Overloading and =delete, Default parameters
• Function Pointer and Function Objects
• Lambda Expressions: Capture list, Lambda expression and function relation, Parameter notes, Composability, Recursion, constexpr/consteval, template, mutable, [[nodiscard]], Capture list and classes
• Preprocessing: Preprocessors, Common errors, Source location macros, Conditional compiling macros, Stringizing operator (#), #error and #warning, #pragma, Token-pasting operator ##, Variadic macro

8. Object-Oriented Programming I - Class Concepts

• C++ Classes: RAII idiom
• Class Hierarchy
• Access specifiers: Inheritance access specifiers, When use public/protected/private for data members?
• Class Constructor: Default constructor, Class initialization, Uniform initialization for objects, Delegate constructor, explicit keyword, [[nodiscard]] and classes
• Copy Constructor
• Class Destructor
• Defaulted Constructors, Destructor, and Operators (= default)
• Class Keywords: this, static, const, mutable, using, friend, delete

9. Object-Oriented Programming II - Polymorphism and Operator Overloading

• Polymorphism: C++ mechanisms for 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, Comparison operator <, Spaceship operator <=>, Subscript operator [], Multidimensional subscript operator [], Function call operator (), static operator [] and operator (), Conversion operator T(), Return type overloading resolution, Increment and decrement operators ++/--, Assignment operator =, Stream operator <<, Operator notes
• C++ Object Layout: Aggregate, Trivial class, Standard-layout class, Plain old data (POD), Hierarchy

10. Templates and Meta-programming I - Function Templates and Compile-Time Utilities

• Function Template: Overview, Template instantiation, Templat parameters, Template parameter - default value, Overloading, Specialization
• Template Variable
• Template Parameter Types: Generic Type Notes, auto Placeholder, Class template parameter type, Array and pointer types, Function type
• Compile-Time Utilities: static_assert, using keyword, decltype keyword
• Type Traits: Overview, Type traits library, Type manipulation

11. Templates and Meta-programming II - Class Templates and SFINAE

• Class Template: Class specialization, Class template constructor
• Constructor template automatic deduction (CTAD)
• Class Template - Advanced Concepts: Class + Function - specialization, Dependent names - typename and template keywords, Class template hierarchy and using, friend keyword, Template template arguments
• Template Meta-Programming
• SFINAE: Substitution Failure Is Not An Error: Function SFINAE, Class SFINAE
• Variadic Template: Folding expression, Variadic class template
• C++20 Concepts: Overview, concept keyword, requires clause, requires expression, requires expression + clause, requires clause + expression, requires and constexpr, Nested requires
• Template Debugging

12. Translation Units I - Linkage and One Definition Rule

• Basic Concepts: Translation unit, Local and global scope, Linkage
• Storage Class and Duration: Storage duration, Storage class, static keyword, Anonymous namespace, extern keywords
• Linkage of const and constexpr: Static initialization order fiasco
• Linkage Summary
• Dealing with Multiple Translation Units: Class in multiple translation units
• One Definition Rule (ODR): Global variable issues, ODR - Point 3, inline functions/variables, constexpr and inline
• ODR - Function Template: Cases, extern keyword
• ODR - Class Template: Cases, extern keyword
• ODR Undefined Behavior and Summary

13. Translation Units II - Include, Module, and Namespace

• #include Issues: Include guard, Forward declaration, Circular dependencies, Common linking errors
• C++20 Modules: Overview, Terminology, Visibility and reachability, Module unit types, Keywords, Global module fragment, Private module fragment, Header module unit, Module partitions
• Compiling Multiple Translation Units: Fundamental compiler flags, Compile Methods
• Libraries in C++: Static library, Build static libraries, Using static libraries, Dynamic library, Build dynamic libraries, Using dynamic libraries, Application binary interface (ABI), Demangling, Find Dynamic library dependencies, Analyze object/executable symbols

14. Code Conventions I

• C++ Project Organization: Project directories, Project files, "Common" project organization notes, Alternative - “Canonical” project organization
• Coding Styles and Conventions: Overview, Popular coding styles
• Header Files and #include: #include guard, #include syntax, order of #include, Common header/source filename conventions
• Preprocessing: Macro, Preprocessing statements
• Variables: static global variables, conversions
• Enumerators
• Arithmetic Types: Signed vs. unsigned integral types, integral types conversion, Integral types: size and other issues, Floating-point types
• Functions: Function parameters, Function arguments, function return values, Function specifiers, lambda expressions
• Structs and Classes: struct vs class, Initialization, Braced initializer lists, Special member functions, =default, =delete, Other issues, Inheritance, Style

15. Code Conventions II

• auto
• Templates and Type Deduction
• Control Flow: Redundant control flow , if/else, Comparison, switch, for/while
• Namespace: using namespace directive, Anoymous/unnamed namespace, Namespace and class design, Style
• Modern C++ Features: Keywords, Features, Class, Library
• Maintainability: Code comprehension, Functions, Template and Debuction, Library
• Portability
• Naming: Entities, Variables, Functions, Style conventions, Enforcing naming styles
• Readability and Formatting: Horizontal spacing, Pointers/References, Vertical spacing, Braces, Type decorators, Reduce code verbosity, Other issues
• Code Documentation: Function documentation, Comment syntax, File documentation

16. Debugging and Testing

• Debugging Overview
• Assertions
• Execution debugging: Breakpoints, Watchpoints / Catchpoints, Control flow, Stack and info, Print, Disassemble, std::breakpoint
• Memory Debugging: valgrind
• Hardening Techniques: Stack usage, Standard library checks, Undefined behavior protections, Control flow protections
• Sanitizers: Address sanitizer, Leak sanitizer, Memory sanitizers, Undefined behavior sanitizer, Sampling-baed sanitizer
• Debugging Summary
• Compiler Warnings
• Static Analysis
• Code Testing: Unit testing, Test-Driven Development (TDD), Code coverage, Fuzz testing
• Code Quality: clang-tidy

17. Ecosystem - Cmake and Other Tools

• CMake: cmake and ctest
• Code Documentation: doxygen
• Code Statistics: Count lines of code, Cyclomatic complexity analyzer
• Other Tools: Code formatting - clang-format, Compiler Explorer, Code transformation - CppInsights, AI-powered code completion -Local code search - ugrep, ripgrep, hypergrep, Code search engine - searchcode/grep.app, Code benchmarking - Quick-Bench, Font for coding

18. Utilities

• I/O Stream: Manipulator, ofstream/ifstream
• Strings: std::string, Conversion from/to numeric values, std::string_view, std::format, std::print
• View: std::span
• Math Libraries
• Random Number: Basic concepts, C++ <random>, Seed, PRNG period and quality, Distribution, Recent algorithms and Performance, Quasi-random
• Time Measuring: Wall-Clock time, User time, System time
• Std Class Templates: std::pair, std::tuple, std::variant, std::optional, std::any, std::stacktrace
• Filesystem Library: Query methods, Modify methods

19. Containers, Iterators, and Algorithms

• Containers and Iterators
• Sequence Containers: std::array, std::vector, std::deque, std::list, std::forward_list
• Associative Containers: std::set, std::map, std::multiset
• Container Adaptors: std::stack, std::queue, std::priority_queue
• Implement a Custom Iterator: Implement a simple Iterator
• Iterator Notes:
• Iterator Utility Methods: std::advance, std::next, std::prev, std::distance, Container access methods, Iterator traits
• Algorithms Library: std::find_if, std::sort, std::accumulate, std::generate, std::remove_if
• C++20 Ranges: Key concepts, Range view, Range adaptor, Range factory, Range algorithms, Range actions

20. Advanced Topics I

• Move Semantic: lvalues and rvalues references, Move semantic, std::move, Class declaration semantic
• Universal Reference and Perfect Forwarding: Universal reference, Reference collapsing rules, Perfect forwarding
• Value Categories
• &, && Ref-qualifiers and volatile Overloading
• Copy Elision and RVO
• Type Deduction: Pass by-reference, Pass-by-pointer, Pass-by-value, auto deduction, auto(x): Decay-copy
• const Correctness

21. Advanced Topics II

• Undefined Behavior: Illegal behavior, Platform specific behavior, unspecified behavior, Detecting undefined behavior
• Error Handling: Recoverable error handing, Return code, C++ Exceptions, Defining custom exceptions, noexcept keyword, Memory allocation issues, Return code and exception summary, std::expected, Alternative error handling approaches
• Smart pointers: std::unique_ptr, std::shared_ptr, std::weak_ptr
• Concurrency: Thread methods, Mutex, Atomic, Task-based parallelism

22. Optimization I - Basic Concepts

• Introduction: Moore's Law, Moore's Law limitations, Reasons for optimizing
• Basic Concepts: Asymptotic complexity, Time-Memory trade-off, Developing cycle, Ahmdal's law, Throughput, Bandwidth, Latency, Performance bounds, Arithmetic intensity
• Basic Architecture Concepts: Instruction throughput (IPC), In-Order, and Out-of-Order Execution, Instruction pipelining, Instruction-level parallelism (ILP), Little’s law, Data-level parallelism (DLP) and vector instructions (SIMD), Thread-level parallelism (TLP), Single Instruction Multiple Threads (SIMT), RISC, CISC instruction sets
• Memory Hierarchy: Memory hierarchy concepts, Memory locality, Core-to-core latency and thread affinity, Memory ordering model

23. Optimization II - Code Optimization

• I/O Operations: printf, Memory mapped I/O, Speed up raw data loading
• Memory Optimizations: Heap memory, Stack memory, Cache utilization, Data alignment, Memory Prefetch
• Arithmetic Types: Data types, Arithmetic operations, Conversion, Floating-point, Compiler intrinsic functions, Value in a range, Lookup table
• Control Flow: Branhes, Branch Hints - [[likely]] / [[unlikely]], Signed/Unsigned integers, Loops, Loop hoisting, Loop unrolling, Assertions, Compiler hints [[assume]]/std::unreacheable(), Recursion
• Functions: Function call cost, Argument passing, Function inlining, Function attributes, Pointers aliasing
• Object-Oriented Programming
• Std Library and Other Language Aspects

24. Optimization III - Non-Coding Optimizations and Benchmarking

• Compiler Optimizations: About the compiler, Compiler optimization flags, Floating-point optimization flags, Linker optimization flags, Architecture flags, Help the compiler to produce better code, Profile guided optimization (PGO), Post-processing binary optimizer, Polyhedral optimizations
• Compiler Transformation Techniques: Basic transformations, Loop unswitching, Loop fusion, Loop fission, Loop interchange, Loop tiling
• Libraries and Data Structures
• Performance Benchmarking: What to test?, Workload/Dataset quality, Cache behavior, Stable CPU performance, Multi-threads considerations, Program memory layout, Measurement overhead, Compiler optimizations, Metric evaluation
• Profiling: gprof, uftrace, callgrind, cachegrind, perf Linux profiler
• Parallel Computing: Concurrency vs. parallelism, Performance scaling, Gustafson's Law, Parallel programming languages

25. Software Design I - Basic Concepts (DRAFT)

• Books and References
• Basic Concepts: Abstraction, interface, and module, Class Invariant
• Software Design Principles: Separation of concern, Low coupling, high cohesion, Encapsulation and information hiding, Design by contract, Problem decomposition, Code reuse
• Software Complexity: Software entropy, Technical debt
• The SOLID Design Principles
• Class Design: The class interface principle, Member functions vs. free functions, namespace functions vs. class static methods
• BLAS GEMM Case Study
• Owning Objects and Views
• Value vs. Reference Semantic
• Global Variables

26. Software Design II - Design Patterns and Idioms (DRAFT)

• C++ Idioms: Rule of Zero, Rule of Three, Rule of Five
• Design Pattern: Singleton, Pointer to implementation (PIMPL), Curiously Recurring Template Pattern (CRTP), Template virtual functions

Roadmap

1. Improve Software Design Chapters
2. Build Aspects Chapter (e.g. reducing build time)

Reporting bugs 🐛 and contributing

If you find any typo, conceptual error, or section to improve, please report them by using the issue panel.

Author

Federico Busato, https://federico-busato.github.io/

• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/federico-busato/
• Twitter: twitter.com/fedebusato