What Every Professional C++ Programmer Needs to Know—Pared to Its Essentials So It Can Be Efficiently and Accurately Absorbed

C++ is a large, complex language, and learning it is never entirely easy. But some concepts and techniques must be thoroughly mastered if programmers are ever to do professional-quality work. This book cuts through the technical details to reveal what is commonly understood to be absolutely essential. In one slim volume, Steve Dewhurst distills what he and other experienced managers, trainers, and authors have found to be the most critical knowledge required for successful C++ programming. It doesn’t matter where or when you first learned C++. Before you take another step, use this book as your guide to make sure you’ve got it right!

This book is for you if

• You’re no “dummy,” and you need to get quickly up to speed in intermediate to advanced C++
• You’ve had some experience in C++ programming, but reading intermediate and advanced C++ books is slow-going
• You’ve had an introductory C++ course, but you’ve found that you still can’t follow your colleagues when they’re describing their C++ designs and code
• You’re an experienced C or Java programmer, but you don’t yet have the experience to develop nuanced C++ code and designs
• You’re a C++ expert, and you’re looking for an alternative to answering the same questions from your less-experienced colleagues over and over again

C++ Common Knowledge covers essential but commonly misunderstood topics in C++ programming and design while filtering out needless complexity in the discussion of each topic. What remains is a clear distillation of the essentials required for production C++ programming, presented in the author’s trademark incisive, engaging style.

Preface xi
Acknowledgments xvii
A Note on Typographical Conventions xix

Item 1:Data Abstraction 1
Item 2:Polymorphism 3
Item 3:Design Patterns 7
Item 4:The Standard Template Library 11
Item 5:References Are Aliases, Not Pointers 13
Item 6:Array Formal Arguments 17
Item 7:Const Pointers and Pointers to Const 21
Item 8:Pointers to Pointers 25
Item 9:New Cast Operators 29
Item 10:Meaning of a Const Member Function 33
Item 11:The Compiler Puts Stuff in Classes 37
Item 12:Assignment and Initialization Are Different 41
Item 13:Copy Operations 45
Item 14:Function Pointers 49
Item 15:Pointers to Class Members Are Not Pointers 53
Item 16:Pointers to Member Functions Are Not Pointers 57
Item 17:Dealing with Function and Array Declarators 61
Item 18:Function Objects 63
Item 19:Commands and Hollywood 67
Item 20:STL Function Objects 71
Item 21:Overloading and Overriding Are Different 75
Item 22:Template Method 77
Item 23:Namespaces 81
Item 24:Member Function Lookup 87
Item 25:Argument Dependent Lookup 89
Item 26:Operator Function Lookup 91
Item 27:Capability Queries 93
Item 28:Meaning of Pointer Comparison 97
Item 29:Virtual Constructors and Prototype 99
Item 30:Factory Method 103
Item 31:Covariant Return Types 107
Item 32:Preventing Copying 111
Item 33:Manufacturing Abstract Bases 113
Item 34:Restricting Heap Allocation 117
Item 35:Placement New 119
Item 36:Class-Specific Memory Management 123
Item 37:Array Allocation 127
Item 38:Exception Safety Axioms 131
Item 39:Exception Safe Functions 135
Item 40:RAII 139
Item 41:New, Constructors, and Exceptions 143
Item 42:Smart Pointers 145
Item 43:auto_ptr Is Unusual 147
Item 44:Pointer Arithmetic 149
Item 45:Template Terminology 153
Item 46:Class Template Explicit Specialization 155
Item 47:Template Partial Specialization 161
Item 48:Class Template Member Specialization 165
Item 49:Disambiguating with Typename 169
Item 50:Member Templates 173
Item 51:Disambiguating with Template 179
Item 52:Specializing for Type Information 183
Item 53:Embedded Type Information 189
Item 54:Traits 193
Item 55:Template Template Parameters 199
Item 56:Policies 205
Item 57:Template Argument Deduction 209
Item 58:Overloading Function Templates 213
Item 59:SFINAE 217
Item 60:Generic Algorithms 221
Item 61:You Instantiate What You Use 225
Item 62:Include Guards 229
Item 63:Optional Keywords 231

Bibliography 235
Index 237
Index of Code Examples 245