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
• Include the last language standard concepts and features
• Practical teaching: small structured descriptions associated to 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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1. Introduction

• A Little History of C/C++ Programming Languages
• Areas of Application and Popularity
• C++ Philosophy
• Books and References
• The Course

2. Basic Concepts I - Fundamental Types

• Preparation: What compiler should I use?, What editor/IDE compiler should I use?, How to compile?
• Hello World: I/O Stream
• C++ Fundamental Types Overview: Arithmetic types, Non-standard arithmetic types, void type, Pointer type and nullptr
• Conversion Rules
• C++ Operators: Operators precedence, Prefix/Postfix increment/decrement, Assignment, Compound , and comma operators, Spaceship operator <=>
• Integral Data Types: Fixed width integers, When use signed/unsigned integer? Promotion, Truncation, Undefined behavior
• Floating-point Types and Arithmetic: Normal/Denormal values, Not a Number (NaN), Infinity, Properties
• Floating-point Issues: Floating-point comparison, Catastrophic cancellation

3. Basic Concepts II - Entities and Control Flow

• Enumerators
• struct, union, and Bitfield
• using, decltype, and auto
• Control Flow: if Statement, for Loop, switch, goto

4. Basic Concepts III - Memory Management

• Heap and Stack: Stack Memory, new, delete, Memory Leak
• Initialization: Variable initialization, Uniform initialization, Structure initialization, Fixed-size array initialization, Dynamic array initialization
• Pointers and References: Pointer, Address-of operator &, Reference
• const, constexpr, consteval, constinit
• Explicit Type Conversion: static_cast, const_cast, reinterpret_cast, Type punning
• sizeof Operator

5. Basic Concepts IV - Functions and Preprocessing

• Declaration and Definition
• Functions: Pass by-value, Pass by-pointer, Pass by-reference, Overloading, Default parameters, Attributes
• Function Objects and Lambda Expressions: Function pointer, Function object (or Functor), Capture list, Other features, Capture list and classes
• Preprocessing: Preprocessors, Common errors, Useful macro, Stringizing operator (#), #pragma and #error, Token-Pasting Operator (##), Variadic Macro

6. C++ Object Oriented Programming I

• C++ Classes
• Class Hierarchy: Access specifiers, Inheritance access specifiers
• Class Constructor: Default constructor, Initializer list, Uniform initialization, Delegate constructor, explicit keyword
• Copy Constructor
• Class Destructor
• Defaulted Members (= default)
• Class Keywords: this, static, const, mutable, using, friend, delete

7. C++ Object Oriented Programming II

• 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, Subscript operator [], Comparison operator <, Spaceship operator <=> Function call operator (), Conversion operator T(), Increment and decrement operators ++/--, Assignment operator =, Stream operator <<, Operator Notes
• C++ Special Objects: Aggregate, Trivial class, Standard-layout class, Plain old data (POD), Hierarchy

8. C++ Templates and Meta-programming I

• Function Template: Overview, Template parameters, Template parameter - default value, Specialization, Overloading, auto deduction
• Compile-Time Utilities: static_assert, decltype Keyword, using Keyword
• Type Traits: Overview, Type traits library, Type manipulation, Type relation and transformation
• Template Parameters: Overview, Special cases

9. C++ Templates and Meta-programming II

• Class Template: Class specialization, Class + Function - specialization, friend keyword, Dependent names, Template variable
• Template Meta-Programming
• SFINAE: Substitution Failure Is Not An Error: Function SFINAE, Class SFINAE, Class + Function SFINAE
• Variadic Template: Folding Expression, Variadic Class Template

10. Translation Units

• Basic Concepts: Translation unit, Local and global scope, Linkage
• Storage Class and Duration: Storage duration, Storage class, static and extern keywords, Internal/External linkage examples, Linkage of const and constexpr, Static Initialization Order Fiasco
• Dealing with Multiple Translation Units: One Definition Rule (ODR), inline functions/variables, Class in multiple translation units, Global variable issues
• Function Template
• Class Template
• ORD and Undefined Behavior
• #include Issues: Forward declaration, Include guard, Circular dependencies, Common linking errors
• Namespace: Namespace functions vs. static methods, Namespace alias, Anonymous namespace, inline namespace
• How to Compile: Compile strategies, Deal with libraries, Build static/dynamic libraries, Find dynamic library dependencies, Analyze object/executable symbols

11. Code Conventions

• C++ Project Organization: Project directories, Project files, src/include directories
• Coding Styles and Conventions
• #include
• Macro and Preprocessing
• Namespace
• Variables
• Functions
• Structs and Classes
• Control Flow
• Modern C++ Features
• Maintainability
• Naming and Formatting
• Code Documentation

12. Ecosystem

• Debugging: Assertion, Execution debugging (gdb)
• Memory Debugging: valgrind, Stack protection
• Sanitizers: Address sanitizer, Leak sanitizer, Memory sanitizers, Undefined behavior sanitizer
• Debugging Summary
• Code Checking and Analysis: Compiler warnings, Static analyzers
• Code Testing: Unit test, Code coverage, Fuzz testing
• Code Quality: clang-tidy
• 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, Code autocompletion - TabNine/Kite, Local code search - ripgrep, Code search engine - searchcode/grep.app, Code exploration - SourceTrail, Code benchmarking - Quick-Bench, Font for Coding

13. Utilities

• I/O Stream: Manipulator, ofstream/ifstream
• Math Libraries
• Strings: std::string, Conversion from/to numeric balues, std::string view, std::format
• Random Number: Basic Concepts, C++ <random>, Seed, PRNG period and quality, Distribution, Quasi-random
• Time Measuring: Wall-Clock time, User time, System time
• Std Template Classes: std::pair, std::tuple, std::variant, std::optional, std::any
• Filesystem Library: Query methods, Modify methods

14. Containers, Iterators, and Algorithms

• Containers and Iterators
• Sequence Containers: std::array, std::vector, std::list, std::deque, std::forward_list
• Associative Containers: std::set, std::map, std::multiset
• Container Adaptors: std::stack, std::queue, std::priority_queue
• View: std::span
• Implement a Custom Iterator: Semantic, Implement a simple Iterator
• Iterator Utility Methods: std::advance, std::next, std::prev, std::distance, Range access methods, Iterator traits
• Algorithms Library: std::find_if, std::sort, std::accumulate, std::generate, std::remove_if

15. Advanced Topics

• Move Semantic: lvalues and rvalues references, Move semantic, Compiler implicitly declared, std::move
• Universal Reference and Perfect Forwarding: Universal reference, Reference collapsing rules, Perfect forwarding
• Value Categories
• &, && Overloading - Ref-qualifiers
• Copy Elision and RVO
• Type Deduction: Pass by-reference, Pass by-pointer, Pass by-value
• const Correctness
• Undefined Behavior
• Error Handling: C++ Exceptions, Defining custom exceptions, noexcept keyword, Memory allocation issues, Alternative error handling approaches
• C++ Idioms: Rule of zero/three/five, Singleton, PIMPL, CRTP, Template Virtual Functions
• Smart pointers: std::unique_ptr, std::shared_ptr, std::weak_ptr
• Concurrency: Thread Methods, Mutex, Atomic, Task-based parallelism

16. Optimization I

• General Concepts: Asymptotic complexity, Optimization cycle, Ahmdal's Law, Throughput, Bandwidth, Latency, Performance Bounds, Arithmetic Intensity
• Basic Architecture Concepts: Instruction-level parallelism, Little’s Law, Data-level parallelism, thread-level parallelism, RISC, CISC Instruction sets
• I/O Operations: printf, Memory Mapped I/O, Speed up raw data loading
• Locality and Memory Access Patterns: Memory hierarchy, Memory locality, Internal structure alignment, External structure alignment
• Arithmetic: Data types, Operations, Conversion, Floating-point, Compiler intrinsic functions, Value in a Range, Lookup Table
• Control Flow: Loop hoisting, Loop unrolling, Branch hints, Recursion
• Functions: Function call cost, Argument passing, Function optimizations, Function inlining, Pointers Aliasing
• C++ Objects: C++ Objects Optimizations

17. Optimization II

• Compiler Optimizations: About the compiler, Architecture flags, Optimization flags, Help the Compiler to produce better code, Profile guided optimization (PGO)
• Compiler Transformation Techniques
• Libraries and Data Structures: External libraries, Std library
• Profiling: gprof, uftrace, callgrind, cachegrind, perf Linux profiler
• Performance Benchmarking: What to test?, Workload/Dataset quality, Cache behavior, Stable CPU performance, Program memory layout
• Parallel Computing: Concurrency vs. Parallelism, Performance scaling, Gustafson’s Law, Parallel programming languages

1. Complete C++20 topics
2. Software Design Chapter
3. Build Aspects Chapter (e.g. reducing build time)

Online compiler and execution: CompilerExplorer

• for code execution: [Add new..] -> [execution only]

If you find any typos, conceptual errors, or sections to improve, please report them by writing directly to me or by using the issue panel

Federico Busato

• Nvidia Corporation [email protected]
• Dept. of Computer Science, University of Verona, Italy [email protected]
• Twitter: twitter.com/fedebusato
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/federico-busato/