Actually, the best way to learn about std::expected is a funny talk by the (in)famous Andrei Alexandrescu: “Expect the Expected!” What std::expected is, and when it’s used Here are three complementing explanations of what an std::expected<T, E> is: It is the return type of a function which is supposed to return a T value – … Read more
Yes. There are two common options. One – which is generally discouraged – is to call the operator= from the copy constructor explicitly: MyClass(const MyClass& other) { operator=(other); } However, providing a good operator= is a challenge when it comes to dealing with the old state and issues arising from self assignment. Also, all members … Read more
The C++ standard does not specify the size of integral types in bytes, but it specifies minimum ranges they must be able to hold. You can infer minimum size in bits from the required range. You can infer minimum size in bytes from that and the value of the CHAR_BIT macro that defines the number … Read more
Yes. There are two common options. One – which is generally discouraged – is to call the operator= from the copy constructor explicitly: MyClass(const MyClass& other) { operator=(other); } However, providing a good operator= is a challenge when it comes to dealing with the old state and issues arising from self assignment. Also, all members … Read more
Consider two libraries called Foo and Bar: using namespace foo; using namespace bar; Everything works fine, and you can call Blah() from Foo and Quux() from Bar without problems. But one day you upgrade to a new version of Foo 2.0, which now offers a function called Quux(). Now you’ve got a conflict: Both Foo … Read more
Most vexing parse This is related to what is known as “C++’s most vexing parse”. Basically, anything that can be interpreted by the compiler as a function declaration will be interpreted as a function declaration. Another instance of the same problem: std::ifstream ifs(“file.txt”); std::vector<T> v(std::istream_iterator<T>(ifs), std::istream_iterator<T>()); v is interpreted as a declaration of function with … Read more
It’s a “pointer to member” – the following code illustrates its use: #include <iostream> using namespace std; class Car { public: int speed; }; int main() { int Car::*pSpeed = &Car::speed; Car c1; c1.speed = 1; // direct access cout << “speed is ” << c1.speed << endl; c1.*pSpeed = 2; // access via pointer … Read more
First example std::vector<int> return_vector(void) { std::vector<int> tmp {1,2,3,4,5}; return tmp; } std::vector<int> &&rval_ref = return_vector(); The first example returns a temporary which is caught by rval_ref. That temporary will have its life extended beyond the rval_ref definition and you can use it as if you had caught it by value. This is very similar to … Read more
C++ has two kinds of enum: enum classes Plain enums Here are a couple of examples on how to declare them: enum class Color { red, green, blue }; // enum class enum Animal { dog, cat, bird, human }; // plain enum What is the difference between the two? enum classes – enumerator names … Read more
How is it useful? It’s useful when you need a copy of *this – for example, when *this itself is no longer valid by the time the lambda is evaluated. How is it different from capturing this? It makes a copy of the object, so that when the lambda is evaluated, its this pointer refers … Read more