Torsten T. Will is a C++ expert who has been fascinated by the language since earning his degree in computer science. In addition to C++, he has worked with numerous other languages over the course of his career, including Python, Java, and Haskell. Since 2004, he has contributed his expertise to c't, a German magazine for computer technology, where he writes about C++ and Python. In his free time, he enjoys photography.

... Preface ... 27
PART I ... Fundamentals ... 31
1 ... C++: The Comprehensive Guide ... 33
1.1 ... New and Modern ... 33
1.2 ... "Dan" Chapters ... 34
1.3 ... Presentation in This Book ... 35
1.4 ... Formatting Used ... 35
1.5 ... Let's Talk Lingo ... 36
2 ... Programming in C++ ... 37
2.1 ... Compiling ... 38
2.2 ... Translation Phases ... 39
2.3 ... Current Compilers ... 39
2.4 ... Development Environments ... 41
2.5 ... The Command Line under Ubuntu ... 43
2.6 ... The Visual Studio Code IDE under Windows ... 46
2.7 ... Speed Up the Sample Program ... 53
3 ... C++ for Newcomers ... 55
4 ... The Basic Building Blocks of C++ ... 63
4.1 ... A Quick Overview ... 66
4.2 ... A Detailed Walkthrough ... 70
4.3 ... Operators ... 97
4.4 ... Built-In Data Types ... 111
4.5 ... Undefined Behavior ... 149
5 ... Good Code, 1st Dan: Writing Readable Code ... 151
5.1 ... Comments ... 151
5.2 ... Documentation ... 152
5.3 ... Indentations and Line Length ... 153
5.4 ... Lines per Function and File ... 154
5.5 ... Brackets and Spaces ... 154
5.6 ... Names ... 156
6 ... Higher Data Types ... 159
6.1 ... The String Type "string" ... 160
6.2 ... Streams ... 166
6.3 ... Container and Pointer ... 172
6.4 ... The Simple Sequence Containers ... 174
6.5 ... Algorithms ... 179
6.6 ... Pointers and C-Arrays ... 180
7 ... Functions ... 181
7.1 ... Declaration and Definition of a Function ... 182
7.2 ... Function Type ... 183
7.3 ... Using Functions ... 184
7.4 ... Defining a Function ... 185
7.5 ... More about Parameters ... 186
7.6 ... Functional Body ... 190
7.7 ... Converting Parameters ... 192
7.8 ... Overloading Functions ... 194
7.9 ... Default Parameter ... 196
7.10 ... Arbitrary Number of Arguments ... 198
7.11 ... Alternative Notation for Function Declaration ... 198
7.12 ... Specialties ... 199
8 ... Statements in Detail ... 203
8.1 ... The Statement Block ... 206
8.2 ... The Empty Statement ... 208
8.3 ... Declaration Statement ... 209
8.4 ... The Expression Statement ... 211
8.5 ... The "if" Statement ... 212
8.6 ... The "while" Loop ... 216
8.7 ... The "do-while" Loop ... 218
8.8 ... The "for" Loop ... 219
8.9 ... The Range-Based "for" Loop ... 221
8.10 ... The "switch" Statement ... 222
8.11 ... The "break" Statement ... 227
8.12 ... The "continue" Statement ... 228
8.13 ... The "return" Statement ... 228
8.14 ... The "goto" Statement ... 229
8.15 ... The "try-catch" Block and "throw" ... 231
8.16 ... Summary ... 232
9 ... Expressions in Detail ... 233
9.1 ... Calculations and Side Effects ... 234
9.2 ... Types of Expressions ... 235
9.3 ... Literals ... 236
9.4 ... Identifiers ... 237
9.5 ... Parentheses ... 237
9.6 ... Function Call and Index Access ... 238
9.7 ... Assignment ... 238
9.8 ... Type Casting ... 240
10 ... Error Handling ... 243
10.1 ... Error Handling with Error Codes ... 245
10.2 ... What Is an Exception? ... 248
10.3 ... Minor Error Handling ... 251
10.4 ... Throwing the Exception Again: "rethrow" ... 251
10.5 ... The Order in "catch" ... 252
10.6 ... Types for Exceptions ... 254
10.7 ... When an Exception Falls Out of "main" ... 255
11 ... Good Code, 2nd Dan: Modularization ... 257
11.1 ... Program, Library, Object File ... 257
11.2 ... Modules ... 258
11.3 ... Separating Functionalities ... 259
11.4 ... A Modular Example Project ... 260
PART II ... Object-Oriented Programming and More ... 273
12 ... From Structure to Class ... 275
12.1 ... Initialization ... 278
12.2 ... Returning Custom Types ... 279
12.3 ... Methods Instead of Functions ... 280
12.4 ... The Better "print" ... 283
12.5 ... An Output Like Any Other ... 285
12.6 ... Defining Methods Inline ... 286
12.7 ... Separate Implementation and Definition ... 287
12.8 ... Initialization via Constructor ... 288
12.9 ... Struct or Class? ... 295
12.10 ... Interim Recap ... 299
12.11 ... Using Custom Data Types ... 300
12.12 ... Type Inference with "auto" ... 315
12.13 ... Custom Classes in Standard Containers ... 319
13 ... Namespaces and Qualifiers ... 323
13.1 ... The "std" Namespace ... 324
13.2 ... Anonymous Namespace ... 327
13.3 ... "static" Makes Local ... 329
13.4 ... "static" Likes to Share ... 330
13.5 ... Remote Initialization or "static inline" Data Fields ... 332
13.6 ... Guaranteed to Be Initialized at Compile Time with "constinit" ... 333
13.7 ... "static" Makes Permanent ... 333
13.8 ... "inline namespace" ... 335
13.9 ... Interim Recap ... 336
13.10 ... "const" ... 337
13.11 ... Volatile with "volatile" ... 357
14 ... Good Code, 3rd Dan: Testing ... 361
14.1 ... Types of Tests ... 361
14.2 ... Frameworks ... 368
14.3 ... [...] ... 372
14.4 ... Helper Macros for Assertions ... 376
14.5 ... An Example Project with Unit Tests ... 379
15 ... Inheritance ... 391
15.1 ... Relationships ... 392
15.2 ... Inheritance in C++ ... 394
15.3 ... Has-a versus Is-a ... 395
15.4 ... Finding Commonalities ... 396
15.5 ... Derived Types Extend ... 398
15.6 ... Overriding Methods ... 399
15.7 ... How Methods Work ... 400
15.8 ... Virtual Methods ... 402
15.9 ... Constructors in Class Hierarchies ... 404
15.10 ... Type Conversion in Class Hierarchies ... 405
15.11 ... When to Use Virtual? ... 407
15.12 ... Other Designs for Extensibility ... 409
16 ... The Lifecycle of Classes ... 411
16.1 ... Creation and Destruction ... 412
16.2 ... Temporary: Short-Lived Values ... 414
16.3 ... The Destructor to the Constructor ... 416
16.4 ... Yoda Condition ... 420
16.5 ... Construction, Destruction, and Exceptions ... 421
16.6 ... Copy ... 423
16.7 ... Assignment Operator ... 426
16.8 ... Removing Methods ... 429
16.9 ... Move Operations ... 430
16.10 ... Operators ... 435
16.11 ... Custom Operators in a Data Type ... 438
16.12 ... Special Class Forms ... 446
17 ... Good Code, 4th Dan: Security, Quality, and Sustainability ... 451
17.1 ... The Rule of Zero ... 451
17.2 ... Resource Acquisition Is Initialization ... 457
18 ... Specials for Classes ... 467
18.1 ... Allowed to See Everything: "friend" Classes ... 467
18.2 ... Nonpublic Inheritance ... 471
18.3 ... Signature Classes as Interfaces ... 477
18.4 ... Multiple Inheritance ... 481
18.5 ... Diamond-Shaped Multiple Inheritance: "virtual" for Class Hierarchies ... 490
18.6 ... Literal Data Types: "constexpr" for Constructors ... 495
19 ... Good Code, 5th Dan: Classical Object-Oriented Design ... 497
19.1 ... Objects in C++ ... 499
19.2 ... Object-Oriented Design ... 500
PART III ... Advanced Topics ... 519
20 ... Pointers ... 521
20.1 ... Addresses ... 522
20.2 ... Pointer ... 523
20.3 ... Dangers of Aliasing ... 525
20.4 ... Heap Memory and Stack Memory ... 526
20.5 ... Smart Pointers ... 530
20.6 ... Raw Pointers ... 539
20.7 ... C-Arrays ... 543
20.8 ... Iterators ... 550
20.9 ... Pointers as Iterators ... 551
20.10 ... Pointers in Containers ... 552
20.11 ... The Exception: When Cleanup Is Not Necessary ... 552
21 ... Macros ... 555
21.1 ... The Preprocessor ... 556
21.2 ... Beware of Missing Parenthesis ... 560
21.3 ... Feature Macros ... 561
21.4 ... Information about the Source Code ... 561
21.5 ... Warning about Multiple Executions ... 562
21.6 ... Type Variability of Macros ... 563
21.7 ... Summary ... 566
22 ... Interface to C ... 567
22.1 ... Working with Libraries ... 568
22.2 ... C Header ... 569
22.3 ... C Resources ... 572
22.4 ... "void" Pointers ... 572
22.5 ... Reading Data ... 573
22.6 ... The Main Program ... 575
22.7 ... Summary ... 575
23 ... Templates ... 577
23.1 ... Function Templates ... 578
23.2 ... Function Templates in the Standard Library ... 588
23.3 ... A Class as a Function ... 593
23.4 ... C++ Concepts ... 609
23.5 ... Template Classes ... 616
23.6 ... Templates with Variable Argument Count ... 630
23.7 ... Custom Literals ... 634
PART IV ... The Standard Library ... 645
24 ... Containers ... 647
24.1 ... Basics ... 648
24.2 ... Iterator Basics ... 660
24.3 ... Allocators: Memory Issues ... 665
24.4 ... Container Commonalities ... 668
24.5 ... An Overview of the Standard Container Classes ... 669
24.6 ... The Sequential Container Classes ... 673
24.7 ... Associative and Ordered ... 716
24.8 ... Only Associative and Not Guaranteed ... 749
24.9 ... Container Adapters ... 779
24.10 ... Special Cases: "string", "basic_string", and "vector" ... 781
24.11 ... Special Cases: "vector", "array", and "bitset" ... 782
24.12 ... Special Case: Value Array with "valarray<>" ... 786
25 ... Container Support ... 795
25.1 ... Algorithms ... 796
25.2 ... Iterators and Ranges ... 798
25.3 ... Iterator Adapter ... 800
25.4 ... Algorithms of the Standard Library ... 800
25.5 ... Parallel Execution ... 802
25.6 ... Lists of Algorithm Functions and Range Adapters ... 805
25.7 ... Element-Linking Algorithms from "" and "" ... 831
25.8 ... Copy instead of Assignment: Values in Uninitialized Memory Areas ... 838
25.9 ... Custom Algorithms ... 840
25.10 ... Writing Custom Views and Range Adapters ... 842
26 ... Good Code, 6th Dan: The Right Container for Each Task ... 845
26.1 ... All Containers Arranged by Aspects ... 845
26.2 ... Recipes for Containers ... 850
26.3 ... Implementing Algorithms That Are Specialized Depending on the Container ... 856
27 ... Streams, Files, and Formatting ... 857
27.1 ... Input and Output Concept with Streams ... 857
27.2 ... Global, Predefined Standard Streams ... 858
27.3 ... Methods for Stream Input and Output ... 860
27.4 ... Error Handling and Stream States ... 864
27.5 ... Manipulating and Formatting Streams ... 867
27.6 ... Streams for File Input and Output ... 879
27.7 ... Streams for Strings ... 892
27.8 ... Stream Buffers ... 898
27.9 ... "filesystem" ... 900
27.10 ... Formatting ... 902
28 ... Standard Library: Extras ... 909
28.1 ... "pair" and "tuple" ... 909
28.2 ... Regular Expressions ... 917
28.3 ... Randomness ... 926
28.4 ... Mathematical ... 935
28.5 ... System Error Handling with "system_error" ... 960
28.6 ... Runtime Type Information: "" and "" ... 968
28.7 ... Helper Classes around Functors: "" ... 972
28.8 ... "optional" for a Single...