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C++ Core Guidelines Explained: Best Practices for Modern C++, 1st edition

Published by Addison-Wesley Professional (April 22, 2022) © 2022

  • Rainer Grimm

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C++ expert instructor Rainer Grimm offers accessible, practical coverage of the Core Guidelines that offer the most value to students learning the C++ programming language. Offering new insights, indispensable context, and proven C++ examples drawn from his courses and seminars, Grimm helps students get more value from the guidelines. 

The wide-ranging coverage of this text addresses C++ programming philosophy, interfaces, functions, classes, class hierarchies, enumerations, resource management, expressions, statements, performance, concurrency, error handling, constants, immutability, templates, generic programming, C-style programming, source files, the Standard Library, and more. Each section links to the original standard online, and wherever appropriate, Grimm previews advances from C++20 and C++23. With Grimm, students can use the C++ Core Guidelines to write C++ code that is more consistent, robust, and well-performing. 
  • Readable, concise, practical, and focused: makes the C++ Core Guidelines more accessible and usable
  • Covers interfaces, functions, classes, enumerations, resource management, expressions, statements, performance, concurrency, error handling, constants, immutability, templates, generics, and more
  • For all programmers using any modern version of C++, including C++17, C++14, and C++11
  • By renowned C++ instructor Rainer Grimm: reflects proven examples he has refined through years of classes and seminars
List of selected C++ Core Guidelines xiii
List of figures xxiii
List of tables xxvii
Foreword xxix
Preface xxxi
Acknowledgments xxxvii
About the author xxxix

Part I: The Guidelines 1

Chapter 1: Introduction 3
Target readership 3
Aim 4
Non-aims 4
Enforcement 4
Structure 4
Major sections 5

Chapter 2: Philosophy 7

Chapter 3: Interfaces 15
The curse of non-const global variables 16
Dependency injection as a cure 18
Making good interfaces 20
Related rules 25

Chapter 4: Functions 27
Function definitions 28
Parameter passing: in and out 32
Parameter passing: ownership semantics 38
Value return semantics 42
Other functions 46
Related rules 52

Chapter 5: Classes and Class Hierarchies 53
Summary rules 54
Concrete types 58
Constructors, assignments, and destructors 59
Class hierarchies 98
Overloading and overloaded operators 117
Unions 126
Related rules 129

Chapter 6: Enumerations 131
General rules 131
Related rules 137

Chapter 7: Resource Management 139
General rules 140
Allocation and deallocation 145
Smart pointers 150
Related rules 164

Chapter 8: Expressions and Statements 165
General 166
Declarations 168
Expressions 186
Statements 199
Arithmetic 204
Related rules 210

Chapter 9: Performance 213
Wrong optimizations 214
Wrong assumptions 214
Enable optimization 218
Related rules 230

Chapter 10: Concurrency 231
General guidelines 232
Concurrency 245
Parallelism 266
Message passing 269
Lock-free programming 273
Related rules 277

Chapter 11: Error Handling 279
Design 281
Implementation 283
If you can't throw 288
Related rules 292

Chapter 12: Constants and Immutability 293
Use const 294
Use constexpr 298

Chapter 13: Templates and Generic Programming 301
Use 302
Interfaces 305
Definition 320
Hierarchies 330
Variadic templates 332
Metaprogramming 336
Other rules 362
Related rules 372

Chapter 14: C-Style Programming 375
Entire source code available 376
Entire source code not available 378

Chapter 15: Source Files 383
Interface and implementation files 384
Namespaces 391

Chapter 16: The Standard Library 397
Containers 398
Text 404
Input and output 411
Related rules 419

Part II: Supporting Sections 421

Chapter 17: Architectural Ideas 423

Chapter 18: Nonrules and Myths 427

Chapter 19: Profiles 437
Pro.typeType safety 438
Pro.boundsBounds safety 439
Pro.lifetimeLifetime safety 439

Chapter 20: Guidelines Support Library 441
Views 441
Ownership pointers 442
Assertions 443
Utilities 443

Part III: Appendixes 445

Appendix A: Enforcing the C++ Core Guidelines 447
Visual Studio 448
clang-tidy 450

Appendix B: Concepts 453

Appendix C: Contracts 457

Index 459
Rainer Grimm has worked as a software architect, team lead, and instructor since 1999, and offered seminars on C++, Python, and proprietary software since 2002. He writes regularly on C++, Python, and Haskell, speaks at conferences on programming issues, and blogs weekly in English (modernescpp.com) and German (www.grimm-jaud.de/index.php/blog). Now an independent instructor, he offers seminars on modern C++ and Python. He has authored several books on modern C++, concurrency, and related topics.

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