C++Now 2016 trip report--Vittorio Romeo

By Adrien Hamelin | May 19, 2016 01:33 PM | Tags: c++14 advanced

Do you want to know what happened at the last C++Now?

C++Now 2016 trip report

by Vittorio Romeo

From the article:

I am very happy to have been part of the C++Now conference for another year, and I hope that I'll be able to come back in the future.

This year, I participated both as a speaker and as a Student/Volunteer.

The experience was, again, simply fantastic: I spent four days in a beautiful location, attended some of the most technically advanced and innovative C++ talks and, most importantly, had the occasion to meet a lot of amazing people.

As a Student/Volunteer, my tasks included: recording the talks, helping during the lunch break/picnic, assisting speakers during sessions and generally helping attendees when possible.

I'd like to thank Jon Kalb, Bryce Lelbach, and the rest of conference staff for making my participation possible.

In this trip report, I'll briefly describe some of my favorite talks and what I have learned from them, then introduce my sessions...

Jacksonville C++ Core Language Meeting Report--Jason Merrill

By Adrien Hamelin | May 19, 2016 01:30 PM | Tags: experimental

Here are the latest news about the future of C++:

Jacksonville C++ Core Language Meeting Report

by Jason Merrill

From the article:

There were three of us from Red Hat at the C++ meeting in Jacksonville, FL back in February, and it seems I never posted my trip report. So here it is now.

This was a fairly eventful meeting, as we’re rapidly approaching C++17 and so the big question on everyone’s minds was “What’s going to make it in?” In the end, many things did, but not Concepts, which some had been hoping for as a headline item.

We started and finished the week looking at the list of Technical Specifications that we were considering incorporating into C++17...

CppCon 2015 Memory and C++ debugging at Electronic Arts--Scott Wardle

By Adrien Hamelin | May 18, 2016 08:00 AM | Tags: performance efficiency

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:

Memory and C++ debugging at Electronic Arts

by Scott Wardle

(watch on YouTube) (watch on Channel 9)

Summary of the talk:

Scott Wardle a senior software engineer Electronic Arts will talk about the current memory and C++ debugging setup and tools used in games.

PS4 and Xbox One have virtual memory and 64 bit address spaces, GPU and CPU are getting closer in the ability to work virtual memory. So our tools are getting better and better and closer to PCs. Most of a games memory goes towards art and level data like bitmap textures and polygon meshes. So artist and designer need to understand how much their data takes up. Giving them call stacks of memory allocations does not help. They want to know how big is a group of building is. Why is this group of building bigger than this one? Maybe this one has some animation data or one of the textures is too big. But there are 10,000s of objects built by 100s of people all around the world.

Folds(ish) in C++11

By Jason Turner | May 17, 2016 04:24 PM | Tags: None

Folds of variadic expressions are coming in C++17, but what about today?

Folds(ish) in C++11

by Jason Turner

From the article:

It is possible to perform some form of the variadic folds that are coming in C++17 with the C++11 and C++14 compilers that we have available today by using just a little bit of creativity.

...

Someone (not me) figured out that we can abuse the std::initializer_list type to let us guarantee the order of execution of some statements while not having to recursively instantiate templates. For this to work we need to create some temporary object to let us use the braced initializer syntax and hold some result values for us.

Only problem is, our print function doesn’t return a result value. So what do we do? Give it a dummy return value!

#include <iostream>

template<typename T>
void print(const T &t)
{
  std::cout << t << '\n';
}

template<typename ... T>
  void print(const T& ... t)
{
  std::initializer_list<int>{ (print(t), 0)... };
}

int main()
{
  print(1, 2, 3.4, "Hello World");
}

...

(And we continue to simplify it much more from here...)

Quick Q: std::rethrow_exception and thrown exception type

By Adrien Hamelin | May 17, 2016 01:11 PM | Tags: None

Quick A: std::make_exception_ptr creates a reference on a copy.

Recently on SO:

std::rethrow_exception and thrown exception type

From documentation for std::make_exception_ptr:

Creates an std::exception_ptr that holds a reference to a copy of e.

Unfortunately, copying e means you get object slicing (which @Mohamad Elghawi points out is also more prominently mentioned later on that page). When you call std::make_exception_ptr<RecognitionException>, it will hold a copy of a RecognitionException, not any derived class.

But you don't need exception_ptr at all here. Even though reportError does not have the try...catch in scope, you can still use throw; to re-throw the current exception.

#include <stdio.h>

struct A { virtual ~A() = default; };
struct B : A { };

void reportError() {
  try {
    throw;
  }
  catch (B &) {
    puts("caught B");
  }
  catch (A &) {
    puts("caught A");
  }
}

int main() {
  try {
    throw B();
  }
  catch (A &) {
    reportError();
  }
}

Quick Q: Static constexpr int vs old-fashioned enum: when and why?

By Adrien Hamelin | May 17, 2016 12:55 PM | Tags: intermediate c++11

Quick A: A static constexpr cannot be used in an ODR context.

Recently on SO:

Static constexpr int vs old-fashioned enum: when and why?

There will be no noticeable difference for integral constants when used like this.

However, enum is actually better, because it is a true named constant. constexpr integral constant is an object which can be, for example, ODR-used - and that would result in linking errors.

#include <iostream>

struct T {
    static constexpr int i = 42;
    enum : int {x = 42};
};

void check(const int& z) {
    std::cout << "Check: " << z << "\n";
}

int main() {
    // check(T::i); // Uncommenting this will lead to link error
    check(T::x);
}

When check(T::i) is uncommented, the program can not be linked:

/tmp/ccZoETx7.o: In function `main': ccc.cpp:(.text+0x45): undefined reference to `T::i' collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status

However, the true enum always works.

Diagnosable validity -- Andrzej Krzemieński

By Felix Petriconi | May 17, 2016 05:24 AM | Tags: c++14 c++11 advanced

Andrzej Krzemieński wrote down his thoughts on ill-formed C++ code.

Quick Q: Templated Function results in Circular Inclusion

By Adrien Hamelin | May 16, 2016 01:36 PM | Tags: basics

Quick A: Separate definition and implementation.

Recently on SO:

Templated Function results in Circular Inclusion

Define registerEvent after IApp.

class IApp;

class Component
{
    IApp* app;
    template<typename T>
    void registerEvent(const int& evtId, Status (T::*func) (int));
};

class IApp : public Component {
  ...
};

template <typename T>
Component::registerEvent(const int& evtId, Status (T::*func) (int)) {
  auto res = std::bind(func, (T*)this, std::placeholders::_1);
  app->registerForEvent(evtId);
}

If need be, also define A::registerEvent after Component::registerEvent.

Quick Q: Why is list initialization (using curly braces) better than the alternatives?

By Adrien Hamelin | May 16, 2016 01:31 PM | Tags: c++11 basics

Quick A: It is less likely to generate an unexpected error.

Recently on SO:

Why is list initialization (using curly braces) better than the alternatives?

Basically copying and pasting from Bjarne Stroustrup's "The C++ Programming Language 4th Edition":

List initialization does not allow narrowing (§iso.8.5.4). That is:

• An integer cannot be converted to another integer that cannot hold its value. For example, char to int is allowed, but not int to char.
• A floating-point value cannot be converted to another floating-point type that cannot hold its value. For example, float to double is allowed, but not double to float.
• A floating-point value cannot be converted to an integer type.
• An integer value cannot be converted to a floating-point type.

Example:

void fun(double val, int val2) {

    int x2 = val; // if val==7.9, x2 becomes 7 (bad)

    char c2 = val2; // if val2==1025, c2 becomes 1 (bad)

    int x3 {val}; // error: possible truncation (good)

    char c3 {val2}; // error: possible narrowing (good)

    char c4 {24}; // OK: 24 can be represented exactly as a char (good)

    char c5 {264}; // error (assuming 8-bit chars): 264 cannot be
                   // represented as a char (good)

    int x4 {2.0}; // error: no double to int value conversion (good)

}

The only situation where = is preferred over {} is when using auto keyword to get the type determined by the initializer.

Example:

auto z1 {99}; // z1 is an initializer_list<int>
auto z2 = 99; // z2 is an int

Conclusion

Prefer {} initialization over alternatives unless you have a strong reason not to.

Top 10 dumb mistakes to avoid with C++ 11 smart pointers -- Deb Haldar

By Mantosh Kumar | May 15, 2016 10:36 PM | Tags: intermediate

Discussion on various aspect of C++11 smart pointers uses.

Top 10 dumb mistakes to avoid with C++ 11 smart pointers

by  Deb Haldar

From the article:

I love the new C++ 11 smart pointers. In many ways, they were a godsent for many folks who hate managing their own memory. In my opinion, it made teaching C++ to newcomers much easier.

However, in the two plus years that I've been using them extensively, I've come across multiple cases where improper use of the C++ 11 smart pointers made the program inefficient or simply crash and burn. I've catalogued them below for easy reference.