CIS-3012 (C++ Programming) Home Page

This is the home page for Peter Chapin's C++ Programming course notes for the Spring 2017 semester. Here you will find electronic versions of class slides, homework assignments, program samples, and links to other references of interest. If you are a student taking C++ Programming you should bookmark this page.

• The course syllabus gives an overview of the course and its content, lists course resources, and describes the grading policy and related issues.
• For part of the course I will be using the Y text editor as a source of examples. The source code for Y is on GitHub. See my short document about Git for more information about how to use the system.
• The homework submission area and gradebook are on Moodle, but all other course resources are here.
• A have an incomplete tutorial on C++ that contains some material and sample programs of interest. My tutorial covers C++ 1998.
• I've prepared some general information on submitting assignments.
• My home page contains other resources of potential interest.

Adobe Connect

All live lectures will be accessed from the same URL. The list below contains links to the recorded lectures.

The list below are approximate lecture-by-lecture topics for this course. The topics with links to Adobe Connect lectures are for this (Spring 2016) edition of the course. The topics without links are approximate and subject to change.

• 2017-01-16. Introduction to the course and to the development system on Lemuria. Introduced std::string.
• 2017-01-18. Introduced std::vector. Demonstrated reverselines.cpp and reversefile.cpp as examples of string and vector in action. Started discussion C++ references.
• 2017-01-23. Continued discussing references. Discussed const and range based for loops.
• 2017-01-25. Introduced C++ classes by way of a rational number example. See Rational1.hpp and Rational1.cpp. The demonstration program is Rational1_demo.cpp.
• 2017-01-30. Continued discussing the Rational number example: inline methods, const methods, implementing binary operator functions from the accumulating operator methods (+ from +=, etc).
• 2017-02-01. More on the Rational number example: Review of concepts presented so far plus overloading of the << and >> operators for doing I/O.
• 2017-02-06. Introduced the BigInteger1 example (BigInteger1.hpp, BigInteger1.cpp, BigInteger1_demo.cpp) along with several minor features: static members (that are constants), type conversion operator methods, and an introduction to friendship. Also introduced the idea of default constructors, copy constructors, and uniform initialization syntax.
• 2017-02-08. Discussed a second example of a C++ class (Date.hpp, Date.cpp, Date_demo.cpp) that illustrates many of the points already discussed in a different context.
• 2017-02-13. Discussed version two of the BigInteger class (BigInteger2.hpp, BigInteger2.cpp, BigInteger2_demo.cpp). This version uses dynamically allocated memory to hold the digits. The design requires non-trivial copy construction, copy assignment, and destructor methods.
• 2017-02-15. Reviewed and extended the discussion on BigInteger2. Also reviewed Homework #3.
• 2017-02-27. Discussed move construction and move assignment. Introduced the Y project.
• 2017-03-01. Discussed the EditBuffer class in Y as another example of a string-like class that manages a region of memory. Introduced inheritance in C++.
• 2017-03-06. More discussion on inhertiance using an example of an Animal class hierarchy (Animal.hpp, Animal.cpp, Animal_demo.cpp). Introduced exceptions.
• 2017-03-08. More on C++ exceptions.
• 2017-03-13. Discussed how inheritance might be implemented and described multiple inheritance.
• 2017-03-15. Discussed the use of multiple inheritance in the Y editor.
• 2017-03-20. Discussed exception safety and introduced std::unique_ptr. Also briefly discussed the standard exception hierarchy.
• 2017-03-22. Introduced templates using a simple min template to illustrate the basic ideas (min.hpp, min_demo.cpp).
• 2017-03-27. More on templates using the ArrayStatic template class as an example (ArrayStatic.hpp, Array_demo.cpp).
• 2017-03-29. More on templates using the ArrayDynamic template class as an example (ArrayDynamic.hpp, Array_demo.cpp). Introduced iterators using a bubble sort example (sorters_1.hpp, sorters_2.hpp, sorters_demo.cpp).
• 2017-04-10. More on templates with a focus on iterators.
• 2017-04-12. Introduced the BoundedList template in support of Homework #5.
• 2017-04-17. Reviewed BoundedList and described the requirements of Homework #5 in more detail.
• 2017-04-19. More on Homework #5 with specifics about some of the syntactic and semantic issues that arise in the assignment.
• 2017-04-24. Introduced explicit template specialization and template metaprogramming (see notes below). Introduced standard threads.
• 2017-04-26. More discussion of standard threads. Discussed a simple thread demonstration program.
• 2017-05-01. Demonstrated C++ function objects and C++11 lambdas.
• 2017-05-03. Discussed the final exam.
• — Topics below are subject to change —

Homework

1. Homework #01. Basic Concepts. Due: 2017-01-25.
2. Homework #02. Quaternions. Due: 2017-02-08.
3. Homework #03. Strings. Due: 2017-03-08.
4. Homework #04. PipeWord. Due: 2017-03-31.
5. Homework #05. SingleList. Due: 2017-04-28. Here are some notes on the assignment to help clarify what needs to be done.
6. — Homeworks below are subject to change —

Notes

• Notes on strings. These notes introduce the std::string class in the C++ library and explore the differences between strings in C++ and C.
• Notes on vectors. These notes introduce the std::vector template in the C++ library and explore the differences between vectors in C++ and arrays in C. It also explores various ways of initializing objects.
• Notes on references. References are fundamental to programming in C++.
• Notes on const. Some comments on type safety with respect to const. I also have some notes on const parameters to functions (a relatively exotic topic).
• The range_based_loops.cpp file contains material on range based for loops.
• — Notes below are subject to change —
• Notes on copying objects. These notes explore some issues related to copy construction and copy assignment.
• Notes on object oriented programming (notes-oop.hpp, notes-oop.cpp). These notes demonstrate some of C++'s basic facilities for doing OOP.
• Notes on multiple inheritance. These notes discuss some issues surrounding C++'s multiple inheritance feature.
• Notes on exception handling. These notes demonstrate the basics of C++ exception handling along with its interplay with inheritance and multiple inheritance.
• Notes on friends. These notes discuss friendship and some of its issues.
• Notes on Homework #5. These notes try to explain how SingleList iterators work.
• Notes on explicit template specialization. These notes show a sketch of a vector class with an explicit specialization for type char.
• Notes on template metaprogramming. These notes show a simple example of a template that calculates the factorial function at compile time.

Links

• LearnCpp.Com contains an extensive tutorial on C++.
• C++ tutorial on tutorialspoint. It looks fairly polished but only appears to cover C++ 1998.
• The cplusplus.com web site contains documentation and reference material for C++. Although not an "official" source of information about the language it nevertheless seems useful and maintained.
• The cppreference.com web site also contains unofficial (but maintained) reference material for C++. Let me know which of these two sites seems better; perhaps I should only link to one.
• Microsoft's reference material on C++. Most directly applicable to Visual Studio users, but much of what is described is entirely standard.
• std::string Quick Reference Card.
• Here are some slides on std::thread that describe how to do multi-threaded programming in C++.
• Microsoft's Visual Studio is their main C++ development tool for Windows.

Last Revised: 2017-05-04
© Copyright 2017 by Peter C.Chapin <PChapin@vtc.vsc.edu>