C++ Guide 📚

👋 Welcome!

This repository is meant to be a guide / quick reference for C++ developers where I try to get to the point so you can spend more time programming. This guide is Markdown, so it is easily opened using Visual Studio Code or Github. It contains extensive documentation, code examples and best practices.

📝 A Note on Reading This Guide

Before you dive in, it's important to understand that this guide is structured by topic, not by difficulty. There is no prescribed "beginner to advanced" path. Feel free to jump to any section that is relevant to your needs. A developer needing to understand std::vector can go straight there, while another might need to brush up on "RAII" or "CMake Presets."

🚀 Execute Code Examples

Explore the 📁 examples directory for interactive C++ code examples, easily executable inside a Docker DevContainer within Visual Studio Code. This setup ensures a consistent and streamlined coding environment, ideal for learning and experimentation.

🗂️ Table of Contents

🛠️ CMake & Tooling Compilation Process Compilation Process Compiler Overview Build Generators Dependency Management ABI (Application Binary Interface) CMake Introduction Generators Variables Targets Presets Macros and Functions (todo) Best Practices Tooling Common Tools H and CPP Files

📜 Strings String Literals IO Streams C Style Strings std::string Character Encoding std::string_view String Streams std::format printf File IO File Streams

📦 Containers Sequence Containers C-Style Arrays Loops std::array Dynamic Allocation Iterators Standard Library Functions (STL) std::list std::deque Associative Containers std::set std::map std::multiset std::multimap Unordered Associative Containers std::unordered_set std::unordered_map std::unordered_multiset std::unordered_multimap Other std::span Container Adaptors

🏛️ Object Oriented Programming OOP

General Classes vs Structs Constructors Destructors Move and Copy Default and Delete Rule of Five Static Friend Nesting Classes Object Relationships

Operator Overloading Introduction Friend, Member and Normal Function Overloading In and Out operators Assignment Operator

Inheritance Introduction Order of Construction Access Specifiers Functions and Overriding Behavior Hiding Functionality

Virtual Functions Introduction Override and Final Specifier Covariant Return Types Destructors Pure Virtual Multiple Inheritance Object Slicing

🧠 Memory Management References Pointers Smart Pointers How To Use Smart Pointers With Functions Shallow Copy vs Deep Copy	🎭 Functions Function Pointers Lambdas std::function	🔗 Typing, Casting & ConstExpr Auto Casting implicit_casting explicit_casting static_cast dynamic_cast Using constexpr Using constval
⚡ Concurrency Introduction STL Threads std::thread std::async and std::future POSIX vs STL Threads	🎨 Design Patterns & Idioms Idioms RAII PIMPL	🚧 Todo Design patterns Templates Error handling

📍 References

General CPP Reference This is more of a reference but contains examples and explanations that can serve as a learning resource. Link here Online C++ Compiler Link here C++ Core Guidelines Link here Google C++ Style Guide Link here Tutorials LearnCpp Devoted to teaching you how to program in C++. Whether you’ve had any prior programming experience or not, the tutorials on this site will walk you through all the steps to write, compile, and debug your C++ programs, all with plenty of examples. Link here GeeksforGeeks Offers a variety of tutorials and exercises ranging from basic to advanced topics. Link here Interviews C++ Interview Questions and Answers (geeksforgeeks.org) Link here

Books Software Architecture with C++ (Paid) Design modern systems using effective architecture concepts, design patterns, and techniques with C++20. By Adrian Ostrowski & Piotr Gaczkowski, April 2021. Link here Professional C++ (Paid) Professional C++, 5th Edition raises the bar for advanced programming manuals. By Marc Gregoire, Feb 2021. Link here Modern CMake for C++ (Paid) Write comprehensive, professional-standard CMake projects. By Rafal Świdziński, May 2024. Link here CMake Best Practices (Paid) Write comprehensive, professional-standard CMake projects. By Dominik Berner & Mustafa Kemal Gilor, Aug 2024. Link here Advanced C and C++ Compiling (Paid) Understand the structure and purpose of the binary files produced by the compiler. Link here Learning C++ (Free) Free unaffiliated eBook created from Stack Overflow contributors. Link here More C++ Idioms (Free) Link here C++ Programming: Code patterns design (Free) Link here C++ Notes for Professionals book (Free) Link here