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Course CPP102
Advanced C++ Programming - STL and Design Patterns

Duration: 5 Days

Intended Audience

Attendees are expected to have basic C++ programming experience. The purpose of the course is to provide an in depth coverage of idioms and design patterns and application development using the Standard Template Library (STL).

Synopsis

Synopsis

C++ is a rich programming language supporting a variety of distinct programming styles: procedural, object-oriented, and generic. This course aims to take programmers from a basic level of understanding to a much more advanced level. The course starts with an overview of existing C++ knowledge and common C++ programming idioms. This is followed by an in depth coverage of templates and the Standard Template Library (STL), and an overview of the Boost libraries.

Prerequisites

Unlike some "advanced" courses, this one does cover complex and advanced material. It is essential that delegates possess a good basic knowledge (and have practical experience) of OO programming in C++. As well as being comfortable with the basic syntax, you should be familiar with declaring, defining and using classes, inheritance, and dynamic memory management.

The class involves a lot of practical work, so delegates should come along prepared to get coding. The course will use the GNU C++ compiler and Eclipse. [If required this course can be run using Microsoft Visual Studio C++ compiler]

Publicly scheduled dates, locations, and prices

Contents:

Overview of C++ Language Features

Const and Casting

• Const correctness
• Overloading on const
• C++ cast operators
• Mutable

Conversions and Scope

• Standard conversions
• Converting constructors
• User defined conversions
• Namespaces
• Koenig lookup
• Nested types
• Static

Exception Handling

• Throwing and catching exceptions
• Exception safe code

Memory Management

• The new handler
• Placement new
• Overloading new and delete

Template Functions

• What are templates?
• Implementing template functions
• Template instantiation

Template Classes

• Creating a template class
• Class instantiation
• Non-type template parameters
• Specialization

Template Metaprogramming

• A brief introduction to metaprogramming

Part 3: C++ Idioms and Design Patterns

Implementing Value Types

• What are value types?
• Construction and destruction
• Copying and assignment
• Operator overloading

The Handle/body Idiom

• The Bridge design pattern
• Using Bridge to decouple compilation
• Implementing handle/body

Functors

• What are functors?
• Implementing functors using operator overloading

Smart Pointers

• What are smart pointers?
• Uses of smart pointers in C++
• Implementing a simple smart pointer
• Reference counting and smart pointers
• Std::auto_ptr

Singletons

• The Singleton design pattern
• A naïve implementation
• Problems with Singleton in C++
• Controlling Singleton lifetime

Standard Template Library

STL concepts

• Concept-based programming
• Containers, iterators and algorithms

Containers

• Sequence containers
• Associative containers
• Adapters

Traits

• The requirement for traits
• How traits are implemented in STL

Iterators

• The Iterator design pattern
• Iterator concepts in C++
• Iterators and containers
• Implementing and using iterators
• Stream iterators

Algorithms

• The STL standard algorithms
• Creating and using algorithms

Introduction to Boost

• Background to Boost
• Obtaining and installing Boost
• Overview of the Boost libraries

Common Boost Libraries

• boost::tuple
• boost::any
• boost::ref
• The Boost smart pointers
• boost::bind