Effective C++ | 00 Introduction

Effective C++ | 00 Introduction

Book: Effective C++ (Third Edition)

TERMINOLOGY

• Declaration
  Tells compilers about the name and type of something but omits details

• Definition
  Provides compilers with the details a declaration omits

• Initialization
  Process of giving an object its first value

Constructors declared explicit USE!
Prevents them from being used to perform implicit type conversions

Copy constructor
Used to initialize an object with a different object of the same type

Copy assignment Operator
Used to copy the value from one object to another of the same type

Widget w1;                                  // invoke default constructor
Widget w2(w1);                              // invoke copy constructor

w1 = w2;                                    // invoke copy
                                            // assignment operator

If an object is being defined (Widget w3) a (copy) constructor has to be called
It can’t be an assignment

If no new object is being defined (w1 = w2) no constructor, so assignment

Copy constructor defines how an object is passed by value
Pass-by-value means “call the copy constructor”

Function objects
Objects that act like functions

Such objects come from classes that overload operator()
the function call operator

Undefined behavior
Behavior of some constructs in C++ is literally not defined: can’t reliably predict runtime

examples:

// access violation
int* p = 0;
cout << *p;

报错：

Naming Conventions
lhs: left-hand-side
rhs:right-hand-side

Used as parameter names for functions implementing binary operators

e.g.
operator==
operator*

a * b
operator*(a,b)

Non-member functions
const Rational operator*(const Rational& lhs, const Rational& rhs);

Member functions
lhs represented by the this pointer

Threads
C++ as a language has no notion of threads, concurrency, STL
C++ is concerned, multithreaded programs do NOT exist

TR1: Technical Report1
Specification for new functionality added to C++ standard library
New class and function templates
Hash tables, reference-counting smart pointers, regular expressions
tr1 namespace nested in std namespace

Boost
Offers portable, peer-reviewed, open source C++ libraries
TR1 functionality based on Boost but Boost offers more