Trip report: Summer ISO C++ standards meeting (Oulu) -- Herb Sutter

By Blog Staff | Jun 30, 2016 04:17 PM | Tags: None

A comprehensive trip report from the just-concluded ISO C++ meeting:

Trip report: Summer ISO C++ standards meeting (Oulu)

by Herb Sutter

From the article:

The big news is that C++ is feature-complete, and on time! We added several more features to the C++17 working paper (see next section), then approved the result to be sent out this summer for its major ISO international comment ballot, which is the Committee Draft or “CD” ballot.

... At this meeting, we added several more features into C++17: ...

Competing constructors--Andrzej Krzemieński

By Adrien Hamelin | Jun 30, 2016 01:15 PM | Tags: None

We all got some surprises like this:

Competing constructors

By Andrzej Krzemieński

From the article:

We start with a known C++ gotcha:

std::vector<int> v (size_t(4), 2); // parentheses
std::vector<int> u {size_t(4), 2}; // braces
 
assert (v.size() == 4);
assert (u.size() == 2);
 
assert (v[0] == 2); // elements: {2, 2, 2, 2}
assert (u[0] == 4); // elements: {4, 2}

In this post I want to analyze the source of the problem a bit further, and offer some suggestions on class design.

CppCon 2016 teaser video

By Blog Staff | Jun 30, 2016 11:08 AM | Tags: None

Just in time for the Early Bird registration deadline tomorrow, CppCon dropped a new teaser video. Enjoy!

See what previous years' attendees had to say, then come join the festival.

C++17, All Final Features from Oulu in a Few Slides

By MichaelWong | Jun 30, 2016 05:52 AM | Tags: None

The good news from Oulu is that we approved the publishing of a draft of C++17.

As I changed job between the last Jacksonville and this Oulu meeting, I have been unable to keep up and write my usual update either post-meeting or pre-Oulu, so I thought I would keep it simple and make up for it in this post (although there have been plenty of other blogs) and show you all the details in a slide deck that I have been using as a keynote at recent ADC++, IWOCL 2016, the Amsterdam SG14/C++ users group meeting, and the Chicago STAC 2016 meetings.

https://wongmichael.com/2016/06/29/c17-all-final-features-from-oulu-in-a-few-slides/

If you just want to see all the features going into C++17 other than the Special Math, Parallelism, Library Fundamentals, and Filesystems TS, just go to slides 44-47 which will contain both the Language and Library features with clickable links for you to follow. The features voted in Oulu are on slide 45 for language and 47 for library.

Quick Q: Are `==` and `!=` mutually dependent?

By Adrien Hamelin | Jun 29, 2016 01:42 PM | Tags: basics

Quick A: They are not, because it is not always true.

Recently on SO:

Are `==` and `!=` mutually dependent?

You would not want the language to automatically rewrite a != b as !(a == b) when a == b returns something other than a bool. And there are a few reasons why you might make it do that.

You may have expression builder objects, where a == b doesn't and isn't intended to perform any comparison, but simply builds some expression node representing a == b.

You may have lazy evaluation, where a == b doesn't and isn't intended to perform any comparison directly, but instead returns some kind of lazy<bool> that can be converted to bool implicitly or explicitly at some later time to actually perform the comparison. Possibly combined with the expression builder objects to allow complete expression optimisation before evaluation.

You may have some custom optional<T> template class, where given optional variables t and u, you want to allow t == u, but make it return optional<bool>.

There's probably more that I didn't think of. And even though in these examples the operation a == b and a != b do both make sense, still a != b isn't the same thing as !(a == b), so separate definitions are needed.

Typedef Literacy--Michael Park

By Adrien Hamelin | Jun 29, 2016 01:38 PM | Tags: basics

typedef explained!

Typedef Literacy

by Michael Park

From the article:

The typedef declaration provides a way to create an alias for an existing type. For example, we can provide an alias for int called integer like so:

typedef int integer;

I imagine most people have seen such declarations, and they are fairly simple to read. In fact it’s so simple that we may incorrectly conclude that the syntax for typedef is:

typedef <existing_type> <new_type_name>;

CppCon 2015 Using Spirit X3 to Write Parsers--Michael Caisse

By Adrien Hamelin | Jun 29, 2016 01:02 PM | Tags: intermediate community

Have you registered for CppCon 2016 in September? Don’t delay – Early Bird registration is open now.

While we wait for this year’s event, we’re featuring videos of some of the 100+ talks from CppCon 2015 for you to enjoy. Here is today’s feature:

Using Spirit X3 to Write Parsers

by Michael Caisse

(watch on YouTube) (watch on Channel 9)

Summary of the talk:

Parsing is a common problem in many domains. The complexity of using a library often pushes developers to ad-hoc solutions utilizing std::string manipulations, regular expressions, or nested if/switch statements. Most “quick hack” implementations are unmaintainable.

Spirit provides a Domain Specific Embedded Language (DSEL) that allows grammars to be described in a natural and declarative manner just like writing PEG or EBNF directly in your C++ code. X3 is the third major release of the Spirit library and improves both compile and run times while simplifying the much of the library.

In this tutorial session you will be introduced to Spirit X3, attribute parsing, and variety of tips to writing efficient and maintainable parsers. We will build a JSON parser during the session to illustrate techniques and usage of the library. This session is applicable toward anyone needing to parse data.

Exploring C++17 and Beyond

By Mark | Jun 28, 2016 11:50 PM | Tags: None

From NDC Oslo 2016:

Exploring C++17 and Beyond

by Mark Isaacson

About the video:

"[This is] a talk about playing with things that don't exist yet. The fun part, is that almost all of it is possible in C++ today. You don't need to wait. You can play with things like std::string_view and get the performance, safety/correctness, and self-documentation benefits today. You can write your own version of constexpr if that works just fine in C++11, lowering the barrier to entry for template branching and design by introspection. The one topic I talked about that you can't just try at home today is operator dot. Operator dot makes for some wonderful brain exercises. In this talk, I use it to implement contracts, specifically postconditions, in C++. In my talk from last year, I used it to let you mix in arbitrary code into any instance of any type. For anyone wondering what features are coming to C++ and when, I open the talk with a specific breakdown of what's new in C++17 and C++20. I also spend a moment talking about why things like concepts and modules didn't make it into C++17."

Visual Studio 2015 Update 3 Released

By Felix Petriconi | Jun 27, 2016 11:57 PM | Tags: None

Yesterday Microsoft released their update 3 of Visual Studio 2015.

Visual Studio 2015 Update 3 released

From the release note:

Several improvements for the compiler and the libraries were done. All the details can be found here.

DynaMix - A new take on polymorphism in C++

By ibob | Jun 27, 2016 11:49 PM | Tags: None

DynaMix (Dynamic Mixins) is a new take on polymorphism. It lets the user compose and modify types at run time in C++

DynaMix released

From the release:

The library is a means to create a project's architecture rather than achieve its purpose. It focuses on maximal performance and minimal memory overhead.

DynaMix is great for the software architecture of systems with very complex objects including, but not limited to:

• Games (especially role-playing ones or strategies)
• CAD systems
• Enterprise systems
• UI libraries