Secrets of the Conditional (ternary) Operator -- Alex Kulikov

By Blog Staff | Mar 7, 2015 06:06 PM | Tags: basics

Hot off kukuruku:

Secrets of the Conditional (ternary) Operator

by Alex Kulikov

(Note: Translation of the original Russian-language article here.)

From the article:

Every self-respecting C/C++ programmer knows what the ternary operator is, and most everyone used it at least once in their programs. But do you know all the secrets of the ternary operator? What potential dangers are associated with its use and what features, seemingly not related to its direct purpose, it has? This article gives you the opportunity to test your knowledge and maybe learn something new.

Let's start with a small test...

Quick Q: Why can a constexpr function return a non-constant?

By Adrien Hamelin | Mar 6, 2015 11:21 AM | Tags: c++11 basics

Quick A: Because constexpr means can be evaluated at compile time, not that it will be. And it won’t be if the inputs aren’t compile-time constants.

Recently on SO:

I am confused about a constexpr function?

In C++ Primer, Fifth Edition, §6.5.2:

A constexpr function is defined like any other function but must meet certain restrictions: The return type and the type of each parameter in must be a literal type (§2.4.4, p. 66), and the function body must contain exactly one return statement

but another sentence in this chapter (page 239):

A constexpr function is permitted to return a value that is not a constant

// scale(arg) is a constant expression if arg is a constant expression
constexpr size_t scale(size_t cnt) { return new_sz() * cnt; }

Is it a contradictory summary? I am confused about it.
The return type of scale is literal type?
update: what's the difference between literal type and constant ?

Quick Q: How to write variadic template constructor?

By Adrien Hamelin | Mar 5, 2015 10:44 AM | Tags: c++11 basics

Quick A: use an std::initializer_list.

Recently on SO:

Writting variadic template constructor

Recently I asked this question but now I would like to expand it. I wrote the following class:

template <class T>
class X{
public:
    vector<T> v;
    template <class T>
    X(T n) {
        v.push_back(n);
    }
    template <class T, class... T2>
    X(T n, T2... rest) {
        v.push_back(n);
        X(rest...);
    }
};

When creating and object using

X<int> obj(1, 2, 3);  // obj.v containts only 1

Vector only contains the first value, but not others. I've checked and saw that constructor is called 3 times, so I'm probably creating temp objects and filling their vectors with the rest of the arguments. How do I solve this problem?

Quick Q:How to modify a tuple in a vector of tuples c++?

By Adrien Hamelin | Mar 5, 2015 10:40 AM | Tags: c++11 basics

Quick A: Capture the tuple by reference.

Recently on SO:

Modifying a tuple in a vector of tuples c++

I have a vector of tuples vector<tuple<int,int>> vector; and I want to modify one of the tuples it contains.

for (std::tuple<int, int> tup : std::vector)
{
    if (get<0>(tup) == k)
    {
        /* change get<1>(tup) to a new value
         * and have that change shown in the vector
         */
    }
}

I am unsure how to change the value of the tuple and have the change be reflected in the vector. I have tried using

get<1>(tup) = v;

but that doesn't change the value of the tuple that is in the vector. How can I do this? Thanks.

How to write a standard-like algorithm -- Indi

By Marcin Hoppe | Mar 5, 2015 01:56 AM | Tags: basics

Explicit C++ has posted a nice tutorial on how to implement an algorithm in C++.

How to write a standard-like algorithm

by Indi

from the article:

Writing a standard-like algorithm should be one of the key parts of a modern C++ beginner’s course outline. This post will be a whirlwind guide through the steps toward creating a standard-like algorithm. The focus is not on the algorithm itself, but on the process of creating one.

Iterators++, Part 3 -- Eric Niebler

By Felix Petriconi | Mar 4, 2015 12:17 AM | Tags: library advanced

Eric Niebler concludes his series about proxy iterators with:

Iterators++, Part 3

by Eric Niebler

From the article:

This is the forth and final post in a series about proxy iterators, the limitations of the existing STL iterator concept hierarchy, and what could be done about it. The first three posts describe the problems of proxy iterators, the way to swap and move their elements, and how to rigorously define what an Iterator is.

This time around I’ll be focusing on the final problem: how to properly constrain the higher-order algorithms so that they work with proxy iterators.

A conditional copy constructor -- Andrzej Krzemieński

By Felix Petriconi | Mar 3, 2015 01:08 AM | Tags: c++11 advanced

Andrzej writes in his recent blog about an issue library writers have to take care of.

A conditional copy constructor

by Andrzej Krzemieński

From the article:

In this post we will try to define a ‘wrapper’ class template that does or does not have a copy constructor depending on whether the wrapped class has it. This will be a good opportunity to explore in depth a couple of advanced C++ features. Note that this is a rather advanced topic and, unless you are writing or maintaining a generic library, you will probably never need this knowledge.

Vector Hosted Lists--Thomas Young

By Adrien Hamelin | Mar 2, 2015 12:01 AM | Tags: performance intermediate

Want perfomance and speed? Vectors are the solution:

Vector Hosted Lists

by Thomas Young

From the article:

Vectors are great when adding or removing elements at the end of a sequence, but not so hot when deleting elements at arbitrary positions.

If that's a requirement, you might find yourself reaching for a pointer-based list.

Not so fast!

Memory locality is important, contiguous buffers are a really good thing, and a standard vector will often out-perform pointer-based lists even where you perform non-contiguous, list-style modifications such as arbitrary element deletion.

And we can 'host' a list within a vector to get the advantages of a contiguous buffer at the same time as 0(1) complexity for these kinds of manipulations...

Comparison of C++ Format and C library's printf -- Victor Zverovich

By Blog Staff | Feb 27, 2015 12:08 PM | Tags: None

The C printf family is still the gold standard of performance for formatted I/O, but woefully fragile and inextensible. C++'s iostreams offers important advantages in type safety, but struggles with performance and internationalization.

A number of projects, such as Boost.Format, try to the advantages of both. Here's further discussion about one such library we linked to recently:

Comparison of C++ Format and C library's printf

by Victor Zverovich

From the article:

I was recently asked on GitHub why would someone use fmt::printf, which is a part of the C++ Format library, over the standard C library printf. This is a fair question and so I decided to write this blog post comparing the two.

Disclaimer: I’m the author of C++ Format, so this is all very biased =).

Operator Overloading – Introduction to Boost.Operators -- Arne Metz

By Felix Petriconi | Feb 27, 2015 12:45 AM | Tags: boost basics

Arne Mertz goes into the details of using boost operators.

Operator Overloading – Introduction to Boost.Operators, Part 1

Operator Overloading – Introduction to Boost.Operators, Part 2

by Arne Mertz

From the articles:

In my first two posts about operator overloading I have written about the basics and common practice. This post shows some lessons from the common practice post on a concrete example and then introduces to Boost.Operators, a library that conveniently reduces the boilerplate involved when overloading multiple operators for a class.

Operators Travel in Packs

If we look at the list of operators, we see that there are about 50 of them, and many of them can be overloaded in different ways. Even if we restrict ourselves to a few operations that make sense for a given class, then one of those operations often brings two or more operators.