Exceptional C++ Style

Description

Software "style" is about finding the perfect balance between overhead and functionality... elegance and maintainability... flexibility and excess. In Exceptional C++ Style, legendary C++ guru Herb Sutter presents 40 new programming scenarios designed to analyze not only the what but the why and help you find just the right balance in your software.

Organized around practical problems and solutions, this book offers new insight into crucial C++ details and interrelationships, and new strategies for today's key C++ programming techniques--including generic programming, STL, exception safety, and more. You'll find answers to questions like:

• What can you learn about library design from the STL itself?
• How do you avoid making templated code needlessly non-generic?
• Why shouldn't you specialize function templates? What should you do instead?
• How does exception safety go beyond try and catch statements?
• Should you use exception specifications, or not?
• When and how should you "leak" the private parts of a class?
• How do you make classes safer for versioning?
• What's the real memory cost of using standard containers?
• How can using const really optimize your code?
• How does writing inline affect performance?
• When does code that looks wrong actually compile and run perfectly, and why should you care?
• What's wrong with the design of std::string?

Exceptional C++ Style will help you design, architect, and code with style--and achieve greater robustness and performance in all your C++ software.

Back Cover

Software "style" is about finding the perfect balance between overhead and functionality... elegance and maintainability... flexibility and excess. In Exceptional C++ Style, legendary C++ guru Herb Sutter presents 40 new programming scenarios designed to analyze not only the what but the why and help you find just the right balance in your software.

Organized around practical problems and solutions, this book offers new insight into crucial C++ details and interrelationships, and new strategies for today's key C++ programming techniques--including generic programming, STL, exception safety, and more. You'll find answers to questions like:

• What can you learn about library design from the STL itself?
• How do you avoid making templated code needlessly non-generic?
• Why shouldn't you specialize function templates? What should you do instead?
• How does exception safety go beyond try and catch statements?
• Should you use exception specifications, or not?
• When and how should you "leak" the private parts of a class?
• How do you make classes safer for versioning?
• What's the real memory cost of using standard containers?
• How can using const really optimize your code?
• How does writing inline affect performance?
• When does code that looks wrong actually compile and run perfectly, and why should you care?
• What's wrong with the design of std::string?

Exceptional C++ Style will help you design, architect, and code with style--and achieve greater robustness and performance in all your C++ software.

Contents

Preface.

1. Uses and Abuses of vector.

2. The String Formatters of Manor Farm, Part 1: sprintf.

3. The String Formatters of Manor Farm, Part 2: Standard (or Blindingly Elegant) Alternatives.

4. Standard Library Member Functions.

5. Flavors of Genericity, Part 1: Covering the Basis [sic].

6. Flavors of Genericity, Part 2: Generic Enough?

7. Why Not Specialize Function Templates?

8. Befriending Templates.

9. Export Restrictions, Part 1: Fundamentals.

10. Export Restrictions, Part 2: Interactions, Usability Issues, and Guidelines.

11. Try and Catch Me.

12. Exception Safety: Is It Worth It?

13. A Pragmatic Look at Exception Specifications.

14. Order, Order!

15. Uses and Abuses of Access Rights.

16. (Mostly) Private.

17. Encapsulation.

18. Virtuality.

19. Enforcing Rules for Derived Classes.

20. Containers in Memory, Part 1: Levels of Memory Management.

21. Containers in Memory, Part 2: How Big Is It Really?

22. To new, Perchance to throw, Part 1: The Many Faces of new.

23. To new, Perchance to throw, Part 2: Pragmatic Issues in Memory Management.

24. Constant Optimization?

25. inline Redux.

26. Data Formats and Efficiency, Part 1: When Compression Is the Name of the Game.

27. Data Formats and Efficiency, Part 2: (Even Less) Bit-Twiddling.

28. Keywords That Aren't (or, Comments by Another Name).

29. Is It Initialization?

30. double or Nothing.

31. Amok Code.

32. Slight Typos? Graphic Language and Other Curiosities.

33. Operators, Operators Everywhere.

34. Index Tables.

35. Generic Callbacks.

36. Construction Unions.

37. Monoliths "Unstrung," Part 1: A Look at std::string.

38. Monoliths "Unstrung," Part 2: Refactoring std::string.

39. Monoliths "Unstrung," Part 3: std::string Diminishing.

40. Monoliths "Unstrung," Part 4: std::string Redux.

Bibliography.

Index.

Author

Herb Sutter is the author of three highly acclaimed books, Exceptional C++ Style, Exceptional C++, and More Exceptional C++ (Addison-Wesley). He chairs the ISO C++ standards committee, and is contributing editor and columnist for C/C++ Users Journal. As a software architect for Microsoft, Sutter leads the design of C++ language extensions for .NET programming.