Jumping into C++

Part 1: Jumping into C++
Chapter 1: Introduction and Developer Environment Setup
What is a programming language?
I've heard of a language called C, what’s the difference between C and C++?
Do I need to know C to learn C++?
Do I need to know math to be a programmer?
Terminology
Programming
Executable
Editing and compiling source files
A note about sample source code
Windows
Step 1: Download Code::Blocks
Step 2: Install Code::Blocks
Step 3: Running Code::Blocks
Troubleshooting
Environment Setup
Compiler Errors
What exactly is Code::Blocks?
Macintosh
XCode
Installing XCode 3
Running XCode
Creating your first C++ program in XCode
Installing XCode 4
Running XCode
Creating your first C++ program in XCode
Troubleshooting
Linux
Step 1: Installing g++
Step 2: Running g++
Step 3: Running your program
Troubleshooting
Step 4: Setting up a text editor
Configuring Nano
Using Nano
Editing text
Saving files
Opening files
Looking at a source file
Learning more
Chapter 2: The Basics of C++
Intro to the C++ language
The simplest C++ program
What happens if you don't see your program?
The basic structure of a C++ program
Commenting your programs
Thinking like a programmer and creating reusable code
A few words on the joys and pain of practice
Quiz yourself
Practice problems
Chapter 3: User Interaction and Saving Information with Variables
Declaring variables in C++
Using variables
What if your program exits immediately?
Changing, using and comparing variables
Shorthand for adding and subtracting one
The use and misuse of variables
Common errors when declaring variables in C++
Case sensitivity
Naming variables
Storing strings
Okay, I get strings—but why all those other types?
The dirty little secret of floating point numbers
The dirty little secret of integers
Quiz yourself
Practice problems
Chapter 4: If Statements
Basic syntax for if
Expressions
What is truth?
The bool type
Else statements
Else-if
String comparisons
More interesting conditions using Boolean operators
Boolean and
Short circuiting checks
Boolean or
Combining expressions
Order of evaluation
Example Boolean expressions
Quiz yourself
Practice problems
Chapter 5: Loops
While loops
A common mistake
For loops
Variable initialization
Loop condition
Variable update
Do-while loops
Controlling the flow of loops
Nested loops
Choosing the right kind of loop
For loop
While loops
Do-while loops
Quiz yourself
Practice problems
Chapter 6: Functions
Function syntax
Local variables and global variables
Local variables
Global variables
A warning about global variables
Making functions available for use
Function definitions and declarations
An example of using a function prototype
Breaking down a program into functions
When you’re repeating code again and again
When you want to make code easier to read
Naming and overloading functions
Summary of functions
Quiz yourself
Practice problems
Chapter 7: What If You Can’t Figure Out What to Do?
All we need to do is check if the number has no remainder when divided by the divisor:
A brief aside about efficiency and security
What if you don’t know the algorithm?
Practice Problems
Chapter 8: Switch Case and Enums
Comparison of switch case with if-else
Creating simple types using enumerations
Quiz yourself
Practice problems
Chapter 9: Randomizing Your Programs
Getting random numbers in C++
Bugs and randomness
Quiz yourself
Practice problems
Part 2: Working with Data
Chapter 10: Arrays
Some basic array syntax
Example uses for arrays
Using arrays to store orderings
Representing grids with multi-dimensional array
Using arrays
Arrays and for loops
Passing arrays to functions
Writing off the end of an array
Sorting arrays
Quiz yourself
Practice problems
Chapter 11: Structures
Associating multiple values together
Syntax
Passing structures around
Quiz yourself
Practice problems
Chapter 12: Introduction to Pointers
Forget everything you’ve ever heard
Ok, then—what are pointers? Why should you care?
What is memory?
Variables vs. addresses
A note about terms
Memory layout
Invalid pointers
Memory and arrays
Other advantages (and disadvantages) of pointers
Quiz yourself
Practice problems
Chapter 13: Using Pointers
Pointer syntax
Declaring a pointer
Pointing to something: getting the address of a variable
Using a pointer
Uninitialized pointers and NULL
Pointers and functions
References
References vs. pointers
Quiz yourself
Practice problems
Chapter 14: Dynamic Memory Allocation
Getting more memory with new
Running out of memory
References and dynamic allocation
Pointers and arrays
Multidimensional arrays
Pointer arithmetic
Understanding two dimensional arrays
Pointers to pointers
Pointers to pointers and two dimensional arrays
Taking stock of pointers
Chapter 15: Introduction to Data Structures with Linked Lists
Pointers and structures
Creating a linked list
First time through
Second time through
Traversing a linked list
Taking stock of linked lists
Arrays vs linked lists
How much space is required for a linked list?
Other considerations
General rules of thumb
Quiz yourself
Practice problems
Chapter 16: Recursion
How to think about recursion
Recursion and data structures
Loops and recursion
The stack
The power of the stack
Downsides of recursion
Debugging stack overflows
Performance
Taking stock of recursion
Quiz yourself
Practice problems
Chapter 17: Binary Trees
Talking about trees
Implementing binary trees
Inserting into the tree
Searching the tree
Destroying the tree
Removing from a tree
Real world use of binary trees
Cost of building trees and maps
Quiz yourself
Practice problems
Chapter 18: The Standard Template Library
Vectors, a resizable array
Calling methods on vectors
Other features of vectors
Maps
Iterators
Checking if a value is in a map
Taking stock of the STL
Learning more about the STL
Quiz yourself
Practice problems
Chapter 19: More about Strings
Reading in strings
String length and accessing individual elements
Searching and substrings
Passing by reference
Const propagation
Const and the STL
Quiz yourself
Practice problems
Chapter 20: Debugging with Code::Blocks
Starting out
Breaking in
Debugging crashes
Breaking into a hung program
Modifying variables
Summary
Practice problems
Problem 1: Issues with exponents
Problem 2: Trouble adding numbers
Problem 3: Bugs with Fibonacci56F
Problem 4: Misreading and misreplaying a list
Part 3: Writing Larger Programs
Chapter 21: Breaking Programs Up Into Smaller Pieces
Understanding the C++ build process
Preprocessing
Compilation
Linking
Why separate compiling and linking?
How to split your program across multiple files
Step 1: Splitting our declarations and definitions
Step 2: Figure out which functions need to be shared
Step 3: Move shared functions into their new files
Going through an example
orig.cpp
orig.cpp
linkedlist.h
linkedlist.cpp
orig.cpp
newheader.h
orig.cpp
Other dos and don'ts of header files
Handling multiple source files in your development environment
Code::Blocks
g++
XCode
Quiz yourself
Practice problems
Chapter 22: Introduction to Program Design
Redundant code
Assumptions about how data is stored
Design and comments
Quiz yourself
Chapter 23: Hiding the Representation of Structured Data
Using functions to hide the layout of a structure
Method declaration and call syntax
Moving function definitions out of the structure
Quiz yourself
Practice problems
Chapter 24: The Class
Hiding how data is stored
Declaring an instance of a class
The responsibilities of a class
What does private really mean?
Summary
Quiz yourself
Practice problems
Chapter 25: The Lifecycle of a Class
Object construction
What happens if you don't create a constructor?
Initializing members of the class
Using the initialization list for const fields
Object destruction
Destruction on delete
Destruction when going out of scope
Destruction due to another destructor
Copying classes
The assignment operator
The copy constructor
The full list of compiler generated methods
Preventing copying entirely
Quiz yourself
Practice problems
Chapter 26: Inheritance and Polymorphism
Inheritance in C++
Other uses and misuses of inheritance
Inheritance, object construction and object destruction
Polymorphism and object destruction
The slicing problem
Sharing code with subclasses
Protected data
Class-wide data
How is polymorphism implemented?
Quiz yourself
Practice problems
Chapter 27: Namespaces
When to write "using namespace"
When should you create a namespace?
Quiz yourself
Practice problems
Chapter 28: File I/O
File I/O basics
Reading from files
File formats
End of file
Writing files
Creating new files
File position
Accepting command line arguments
Dealing with numeric command line arguments
Binary file I/O
Working with binary files
Converting to char*
An example of binary I/O
Storing classes in a file
Reading from a file
Quiz yourself
Practice problems
Chapter 29: Templates in C++
Template functions
Type inference
Duck typing
Template classes
Tips for working with templates
Templates and header files
Summarizing templates
Diagnosing template error messages
Quiz yourself
Practice problems
Part 4: Miscellaneous Topics
Chapter 30: Formatting Output Using Iomanip
Dealing with spacing issues
Setting the field width with setw
Changing the padding character
Permanently changing settings
Putting your knowledge of iomanip together
Printing numbers
Setting the precision of numerical output with setprecision
What do you do about money?
Output in different bases
Chapter 31: Exceptions and Error Reporting
Releasing resources during exceptions
Manual cleanup of resources in a catch block
Throwing exceptions
Throw specifications
Benefits of exceptions
Misuse of exceptions
Exceptions in summary
Chapter 32: Final Thoughts
Chapter 2 quiz solution
Chapter 3 quiz solution
Chapter 4 quiz solution
Chapter 5 quiz solution
Chapter 6 quiz solution
Chapter 8 quiz solution
Chapter 9 quiz solution
Chapter 10 quiz solution
Chapter 11 quiz solution
Chapter 12 quiz solution
Chapter 13 quiz solution
Chapter 14 quiz solution
Chapter 15 quiz solution
Chapter 16 quiz solution
Chapter 17 quiz solution
Chapter 18 quiz solution
Chapter 19 quiz solution
Chapter 21 quiz solution
Chapter 22 quiz solution
Chapter 23 quiz solution
Chapter 24 quiz solution
Chapter 25 quiz solution
Chapter 26 quiz solution
Chapter 27 quiz solution
Chapter 28 quiz solution
Chapter 29 quiz solution