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Thisopen-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 thelast language standard concepts and features
• Practical teaching: small structured descriptions associated with 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

If you enjoy the course or you find it useful, please add aStar

1. Introduction

• A Little History of C/C++ Programming Languages
• Areas of Application and Popularity
• C++ Philosophy
• C++ Weakness
• 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 andnullptr
• Conversion Rules
• auto declaration
• C++ Operators: Operators precedence, Prefix/Postfix increment/decrement, Assignment, Compound , and Comma operators, Spaceship operator<=> , Safe Comparison Operators

3. Basic Concepts II - Integral and Floating-point Types

• Integral Data Types: Fixed width integers,size_t andptrdiff_t, When use signed/unsigned integer? Promotion, Truncation, Undefined behavior
• Floating-point Types and Arithmetic: IEEE Floating-point Standard and Other Representations, Normal/Denormal values, Infinity, Not a Number (NaN), Machine Epsilon, Units at the Last Place (ULP), Cheatsheet, Summary, Arithmetic Properties, Detect Floating-point Errors
• Floating-point Issues: Catastrophic cancellation, Floating-point comparison

4. Basic Concepts III - Entities and Control Flow

• Enumerators
• struct, Bitfield,union
• Control Flow:if Statement,for Loop, Range-basefor loop,switch,goto

5. Basic Concepts IV - Memory Management

• Heap and Stack: Stack Memory,new,delete, Non-allocating placement allocation, Non-throwing allocation, Memory leak
• Initialization: Variable initialization, Uniform initialization, Fixed-size array initialization, Structure initialization, Dynamic memory initialization
• Pointers and References: Pointer Operations, Address-of operator&, Reference
• Constant and Literals,const,constexpr,consteval,constinit,if constexpr,std::is constant evaluated(),if consteval
• volatile keyword
• Explicit Type Conversion:static_cast,const_cast,reinterpret_cast, Type punning
• sizeof Operator

6. Basic Concepts V - Functions and Preprocessing

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

7. Object-Oriented Programming I - Class Concepts

• C++ Classes: RAII Idiom
• Class Hierarchy: Access specifiers, Inheritance access specifiers
• Class Constructor: Default constructor, Class initialization, Uniform initialization, Delegate constructor,explicit keyword,[[nodiscard]] and classes
• Copy Constructor
• Class Destructor
• Defaulted Constructors, Destructor, and Operators (= default)
• Class Keywords:this,static,const,mutable,using,friend,delete

8. Object-Oriented Programming II - Polymorphism and Operator Overloading

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

9. Templates and Meta-programming I - Function Templates and Compile-Time Utilities

• Function Template: Overview, Template parameters, Template parameter - default value, Specialization, Overloading
• Template Variable
• Template Parameter Types: Generic Type Notes,auto Placeholder, Class template parameter type, Array and pointer types, Function type
• Compile-Time Utilities:static_assert,decltype Keyword,using Keyword
• Type Traits: Overview, Type traits library, Type manipulation

10. Templates and Meta-programming II -  - Class Templates and SFINAE

• Class Template: Class specialization, Template class constructor
• Class Template - Advanced Concepts: Class + Function - Specialization, Dependent Names -typename andtemplate Keywords, Class template hierarchy andusing,friend Keyword, Template Template Arguments
• Template Meta-Programming
• SFINAE: Substitution Failure Is Not An Error: Function SFINAE, Class SFINAE, Class + Function SFINAE
• Variadic Template: Folding Expression, Variadic class template
• C++20 Concepts: Overview,concept Keyword,requires Clause,requires Expression,requires Expression + Clause,requires Clause + Expression,requires andconstexpr, Nestedrequires

11. Translation Units I

• Basic Concepts: Translation unit, Local and global scope, Linkage
• Storage Class and Duration: Storage duration, Storage class,static andextern keywords, Internal/External linkage examples
• Linkage ofconst andconstexpr: Static Initialization Order Fiasco
• Linkage Summary
• Dealing with Multiple Translation Units: Class in multiple translation units
• One Definition Rule (ODR): Global variable issues, ODR - Point 3,inline functions/variables,constexpr andinline
• ODR - Function Template: Cases,extern keyword
• ODR - Class Template: Cases,extern keyword
• ODR Undefined Behavior and Summary

12. Translation Units II

• #include Issues: Forward declaration, Include guard, Circular dependencies, Common linking errors
• C++20 Modules: Overview, Terminology, Visibility and Reachability, Module unit types, Keywords, Global module fragment, Private module fragment, Header module unit, Module partitions
• Namespace: Namespace functions vs.static methods, Namespace alias, Anonymous namespace,inline namespace, Attributes and namespace
• Compiling Multiple Translation Units: Fundamental compiler flags, Compile Methods, Deal with libraries, Build static/dynamic libraries, Find dynamic library dependencies, Analyze object/executable symbols

13. Code Conventions

• C++ Project Organization: Project directories, Project files, “Common” Project Organization Notes, Alternative - “Canonical” project organization
• Coding Styles and Conventions
• #include
• Macro and Preprocessing
• Namespace
• Variables
• Functions
• Structs and Classes
• Control Flow
• Modern C++ Features
• Maintainability
• Naming
• Readability and Formatting
• Code Documentation

14. Ecosystem I

• Debugging
• Assertion
• Execution debugging
• Memory Debugging:valgrind, Stack protection
• Sanitizers: Address sanitizer, Leak sanitizer, Memory sanitizers, Undefined behavior sanitizer
• Debugging Summary
• Compiler Warnings
• Static Analysis
• Code Testing: Unit test, Code coverage, Fuzz testing
• Code Quality:clang-tidy

15. Ecosystem II

• CMake:cmake andctest
• 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 -GitHub Co-Pilot/TabNine/Kite, Local code search -ripgrep, Code search engine -searchcode/grep.app, Code benchmarking -Quick-Bench, Font for Coding

16. Utilities

• I/O Stream: Manipulator,ofstream/ifstream
• Math Libraries
• Strings:std::string, Conversion from/to numeric values,std::string_view,std::format,std::print
• 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::bytestd::pair,std::tuple,std::variant,std::optional,std::any
• Filesystem Library: Query methods, Modify methods

17. 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, Container access methods, Iterator traits
• Algorithms Library:std::find_if,std::sort,std::accumulate,std::generate,std::remove_if
• C++20 Ranges: Key concepts, Range view, Range adaptor, Range factory, Range algorithms, Range actions

18. Advanced Topics I

• Move Semantic:lvalues andrvalues references, Move semantic, Compiler implicitly declared,std::move
• Universal Reference and Perfect Forwarding: Universal reference, Reference collapsing rules, Perfect forwarding
• Value Categories
• &,&& Ref-qualifiers andvolatile Overloading
• Copy Elision and RVO
• Type Deduction: Pass by-reference, Pass by-pointer, Pass by-value,auto deduction
• const Correctness

19. Advanced Topics II

• 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

20. Optimization I - Basic Concepts

• Introduction: Moore’s Law, Moore’s Law limitations, Reasons for Optimizing
• Basic Concepts: Asymptotic complexity, Time-Memory Trade-off, Developing Cycle, Ahmdal's law, Throughput, Bandwidth, Latency, Performance bounds, Arithmetic intensity
• Basic Architecture Concepts: Instruction-level parallelism (ILP), Little’s law, Data-level parallelism (SIMD), Thread-level parallelism (TLP), Single Instruction Multiple Threads (SIMT), RISC, CISC Instruction sets
• Memory Hierarchy: Memory hierarchy concepts, Memory locality

21. Optimization II - Code Optimization

• I/O Operations:printf, Memory mapped I/O, Speed up raw data loading
• Memory Optimizations: Heap memory, Stack memory, Cache utilization, data alignment, Memory Prefetch
• Arithmetic: Data types, Operations, Conversion, Floating-point, Compiler intrinsic functions, Value in a range, Lookup table
• Control Flow: Loop hoisting, Loop unrolling, Branch hints, Compiler hints, Recursion
• Functions: Function call cost, Argument passing, Function optimizations, Function inlining, Pointers aliasing
• C++ Objects: Object RAII optimizations
• Std Library and Other Language Aspects

22. Optimization III - Non-Coding Optimizations and Benchmarking

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

1. Software Design Chapter
2. Build Aspects Chapter (e.g. reducing build time)

Online compiler and execution:CompilerExplorer

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

If you find any typo, conceptual error, or section to improve, please report them by writing directly to me or by using theissue panel

Federico Busato

• Twitter:twitter.com/fedebusato
• LinkedIn:www.linkedin.com/in/federico-busato/