C++ FAQ / Section 4 / FAQ 4.24

 E-mail the author
[ Subject index | About the author | © ]
Revised Jul 4, 2012

[4.24] What updates were made for the 02/05 release?

Generic changes:

• Split the section on Containers and Templates into a section on Containers and a section on Templates.

6 New FAQs:

• [4.24] What updates were made for the 02/05 release?
  (created)
• [9.9] With inline member functions that are defined outside the class, is it best to put the inline keyword next to the declaration within the class body, next to the definition outside the class body, or both?
  (created)
• [10.9] Does return-by-value mean extra copies and extra overhead?
  (created)
• [13.8] Okay, that tells me the operators I can override; which operators should I override?
  (created thanks to Conrad Weisert for suggesting the topic)
• [13.9] What are some guidelines / "rules of thumb" for overloading operators?
  (created)
• [33.14] Can you make functionoids faster than normal function calls?
  (created thanks to a suggestion from Padmanabhan V. Karthic)

24 Changed FAQs:

• [5.9] Which newsgroup should I post my questions?
  (added a link to TechiWarehouse thanks to Adam Fisher)
• [9.3] Do inline functions improve performance?
  (added two bullets on cache misses thanks to a suggestion from Tom Brown)
• [10.6] Should my constructors use "initialization lists" or "assignment"?
  (added an "or when" and a cross reference to the last paragraph, plus fixed some grammar, thanks to Padmanabhan V. Karthic)
• [10.8] What is the "Named Constructor Idiom"?
  (added the last paragraph to discuss the return-by-value optimization thanks to a question from Can Isin)
• [10.20] What is the "Named Parameter Idiom"?
  (changed friend File; to friend class File; thanks to Mehri and Padmanabhan V. Karthic)
• [10.21] Why am I getting an error after declaring a Foo object via Foo x(Bar())?
  (added the alternate syntax Foo x = Bar(); thanks to a suggestion from Mike Dunn)
• [13.13] Should I design my classes from the outside (interfaces first) or from the inside (data first)?
  (changed friend LinkedList; to friend class LinkedList;, and similarly with LinkedListIterator, thanks to Padmanabhan V. Karthic)
• [16.19] What's another way to build a Matrix template?
  (added some pros/cons (mostly pros) thanks to a suggestion from Padmanabhan V. Karthic)
• [16.22] How do I do simple reference counting?
  (changed friend FredPtr; to friend class FredPtr; thanks to Padmanabhan V. Karthic)
• [16.24] How do I provide reference counting with copy-on-write semantics for a hierarchy of classes?
  (changed friend Fred; to friend class Fred; thanks to Padmanabhan V. Karthic)
• [17.6] Exception handling seems to make my life more difficult; clearly I'm not the problem, am I??
  (rewrote the last bullet thanks to a critique of the old wording from Jan Ploski)
• [17.13] What should I catch?
  (fixed a grammatical error thanks to Padmanabhan V. Karthic)
• [18.15] Why does the compiler allow me to change an int after I've pointed at it with a int const*?
  (initialized variable x in main() thanks to Yechiel Kimchi )
• [27.13] Are there any other sources of coding standards?
  (hoisted the Sutter/Alexandrescu book out to its proper, primary place; also added (thanks to Kevlin Henney) links to and insights about Elemtel and Industrial Strength C++)
• [29.5] What are the criteria for choosing between short / int / long data types?
  (added the disclaimer that <stdint.h> is not part of the C++ standard and might not be supplied by your compiler vendor thanks to Padmanabhan V. Karthic)
• [29.19] What is the type of an enumeration such as enum Color? Is it of type int?
  (fixed a typo thanks to Surendra Phadke and Brandon Forehand)
• [30.5] What are the practical consequences of differences in Smalltalk/C++ inheritance?
  (fixed the spelling of Maserati thanks to Alessandro/Gruppo Visione)
• [33.2] How do I pass a pointer-to-member-function to a signal handler, X event callback, system call that starts a thread/task, etc?
  (fixed a grammatical error thanks to Padmanabhan V. Karthic)
• [33.5] How can I avoid syntax errors when creating pointers to members?
  (added return value (int ans = ...) to make the sample-code more illustrative thanks to Pete Brunet)
• [33.6] How can I avoid syntax errors when calling a member function using a pointer-to-member-function?
  (added return value (int ans = ...) to make the sample-code more illustrative thanks to Pete Brunet)
• [33.13] What the heck is a functionoid, and why would I use one?
  (added a virtual dtor thanks to Marcus; added parameters to doit() thanks to Dirk Bonekaemper; made the dtor pure virtual as an optimization)
• [35.19] Why am I getting errors when my template-derived-class uses a member it inherits from its template-base-class?
  (added public: thanks to Alexander Kamotsky and Leonard "SoulSkorpion" Frankel and Stefan Näwe; fixed a grammatical error thanks to Val Kartchner)
• [39.4] What should be done with macros that contain if?
  (clarified why we use the (void)0 part thanks to a suggestion from Padmanabhan V. Karthic)
• [40.1] How can I generate HTML documentation for my classes? Does C++ have anything similar to javadoc?
  (updated the link to www.robertnz.net/cpp_site.html thanks to Robert Davies and Peter Kammer)