C++ FAQ / Section 4 / FAQ 4.26

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Revised Jul 4, 2012

[4.26] What updates were made for the 06/04 release?

Polish translation:

• The Polish translation of the C++ FAQ is now available thanks to the hard work of translators Tomek Bywalec, Bartek Krzemien and Janek Pustelnik. The translation isn't finished, but the translators deserve congratulations and thanks for what they've done so far.

16 New FAQs:

• [2.11] Where can I find the C++ FAQ translated into Polish?
  (created with much thanks to translators Tomek Bywalec, Bartek Krzemien and Janek Pustelnik)
• [4.26] What updates were made for the 06/04 release?
  (created)
• [6.17] Is it important to know the technical definition of "good OO"? Of "good class design"?
  (created)
• [17.12] What should I throw?
  (created thanks to Carl Daniel)
• [17.13] What should I catch?
  (created thanks to Carl Daniel)
• [17.14] But MFC seems to encourage the use of catch-by-pointer; should I do the same?
  (created thanks to Carl Daniel)
• [17.15] What does throw; (without an exception object after the throw keyword) mean? Where would I use it?
  (created thanks to Carl Daniel)
• [17.16] How do I throw polymorphically?
  (created thanks to Carl Daniel)
• [17.17] When I throw this object, how many times will it be copied?
  (created thanks to Carl Daniel)
• [33.12] I need something like function-pointers, but with more flexibility and/or thread-safety; is there another way?
  (created)
• [33.13] What the heck is a functionoid, and why would I use one?
  (created thanks to a question from Christian Cuvier)
• [35.17] How can any human hope to understand these overly verbose template-based error messages?
  (created thanks to gentle pestering from Leor Zolman)
• [35.19] Why am I getting errors when my template-derived-class uses a member it inherits from its template-base-class?
  (created thanks to Daveed Vandevoorde)
• [35.20] Can the previous problem hurt me silently? Is it possible that the compiler will silently generate the wrong code?
  (created thanks to Daveed Vandevoorde)
• [39.15] Why do some people think x = ++y + y++ is bad?
  (created)
• [39.16] What's the deal with "sequence points"?
  (created)

32 Changed FAQs:

• [2.6] Where can I find the C++ FAQ translated into Chinese?
  (updated the URL for the GB-encoded translation thanks to Imron Alston)
• [6.5] Is C++ better than Ada? (or Visual Basic, C, FORTRAN, Pascal, Smalltalk, or any other language?)
  (added to the last paragraph to make it stronger(!!))
• [6.13] Where can I get a copy of the ANSI/ISO C++ standard?
  (rewrote from scratch, thanks to comments and corrections from Petter Häggholm, Lars Christensen, Pieter Van Dyck and Jim Fischer)
• [6.15] What does the FAQ mean by "such and such is evil"?
  (changed "such-in-such" to "such and such" thanks to Darren Frith and Simon OLeary)
• [8.4] What does object.method1().method2() mean?
  (removed a couple superfluous ")"s)
• [10.3] Can one constructor of a class call another constructor of the same class to initialize the this object? Updated!
  (added a strong statement against using placement new in this situation thanks to questions from Marc Page and Steve Peters)
• [10.6] Should my constructors use "initialization lists" or "assignment"?
  (fixed a (subtle!) miswording in the second paragraph thanks to Tomek Bywalec, Bartek Krzemien and Tian Yu; added the stuff on exceptions (see last paragraph) thanks to Alf Steinbach)
• [10.20] What is the "Named Parameter Idiom"?
  (added a bunch more example code and clarified the explanation of class OpenFile thanks to Tomek Bywalec and Bartek Krzemien)
• [12.1] What is "self assignment"?
  (fixed an error in the code-comments thanks to Jonathan Mcdougall)
• [13.10] How do I create a subscript operator for a Matrix class?
  (fixed a typo thanks to Doug Schwartz)
• [15.1] Why should I use <iostream> instead of the traditional <cstdio>?
  (removed a superfluous ")")
• [15.9] But shouldn't I always use a printOn() method rather than a friend function?
  (removed a superfluous ")")
• [15.17] How can I tell {if a key, which key} was pressed before the user presses the ENTER key?
  (updated the URL thanks to Sampath Patnala)
• [15.18] How can I make it so keys pressed by users are not echoed on the screen?
  (fixed the title thanks to Todd Catelotti)
• [16.6] Do I need to check for NULL after p = new Fred()?
  (added a caveat for MSVC++ thanks to Graham Knap)
• [20.8] What is a "virtual constructor"?
  (rewrote the last paragraph for clarity)
• [21.2] Converting Derived* → Base* works OK; why doesn't Derived** → Base** work?
  (fixed a grammatical error thanks to Philip S Tellis)
• [22.5] How do you define a copy constructor or assignment operator for a class that contains a pointer to a (abstract) base class?
  (added a "contract" to the Fred ctor thanks to Bo Majewski; changed the return types in the derived classes to exploit covariant return types thanks to Dan Raviv)
• [23.11] How can I set up my class so it won't be inherited from?
  (fixed a bug in the friend declaration, renamed the classes to Fred and FredBase, and general wordsmithing)
• [28.7] What are some best-of-breed C++ programming-by-example guides?
  (added details about Musser and Saini thanks to Randy Sherman)
• [29.5] What are the criteria for choosing between short / int / long data types?
  (added stuff about <stdint.h> thanks to Oliver Kellogg)
• [29.19] What is the type of an enumeration such as enum Color? Is it of type int?
  (added the caveat about converting only valid integers to enumerations thanks to Mike Radford)
• [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?
  (added caveat about using extern "C" non-member function thanks to Rolf Magnus)
• [33.4] Why am I having trouble taking the address of a C++ function?
  (rewrote the opening paragraph to give a better explanation of the "short answer")
• [35.13] How can I avoid linker errors with my template functions? Updated!
  (added a note about the export keyword thanks to Greg Comeau)
• [35.15] How can I avoid linker errors with my template classes? Updated!
  (added a note about the export keyword thanks to Greg Comeau)
• [35.16] Why do I get linker errors when I use template friends?
  (added the required <> within the friend declaration thanks to Christophe Barbe; added the "define it within the class body" approach thanks to Frode Angell-Petersen AKA Sprudling)
• [36.10] How do I serialize objects that contain pointers to other objects, but those pointers form a tree with no cycles and only "trivial" joins?
  (fixed some spelling errors thanks to Steve Fallows)
• [38.13] Is it possible to convert C++ to C?
  (added LLVM thanks to Chris Sabre)
• [39.4] What should be done with macros that contain if?
  (modified the primary solution to include (void)0, and thanks to Erik Haugen and Mike Morearty, added some pros/cons commentary to the secondary solution; plus did some general wordsmithing)
• [39.5] What should be done with macros that have multiple lines?
  (modified the primary solution to include (void)0, and thanks to Erik Haugen and Mike Morearty, added some pros/cons commentary to the secondary solution; plus did some general wordsmithing)
• [39.7] Why can't the compiler find my header file in #include "c:\test.h" ?
  (softened the wording to reflect the difference between header-names and string-literals thanks to Michiel Salters)