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 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

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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 and nullptr
• 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-base for 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 and warning, #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 operator T(), 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 and template Keywords, Class template hierarchy and using, 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 and constexpr, Nested requires

11. Translation Units I

• 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
• 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 and inline
• 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 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 - 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::byte std::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 and rvalues references, Move semantic, Compiler implicitly declared, std::move
• Universal Reference and Perfect Forwarding: Universal reference, Reference collapsing rules, Perfect forwarding
• Value Categories
• &, && Ref-qualifiers and volatile 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 the issue panel

Federico Busato

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