C艹 FAQ

Welcome to the C艹 Super-FAQ!

What’s “Super” about this FAQ? In part it’s because this is a merger of two great FAQs: Marshall Cline’s C艹 FAQs, and Bjarne Stroustrup’s C艹 FAQ. And in part it’s because this is a wiki being continuously updated for modern C艹. There are some FAQ topics not yet updated; if you spot one, suggest an improvement using the link on the bar for that FAQ.

We would like to gratefully acknowledge Pearson Education (Addison-Wesley), Marshall Cline, Bjarne Stroustrup, Herb Sutter, and Andrei Alexandrescu for launching this FAQ by freely contributing the contents of Marshall Cline’s online C艹 FAQ Lite, Bjarne Stroustrup’s online C艹 and C艹11 FAQs, and in the near future material from their books C艹 FAQs Second Edition by Marshall Cline, Greg Lomow, and Mike Girou, and C艹 Coding Standards by Herb Sutter and Andrei Alexandrescu.

C艹 FAQ Sections

Overview Topics

• Big Picture Issues
• Newbie Questions & Answers
• Learning OO/C艹
• Coding Standards
• User Groups Worldwide
• Conferences Worldwide
• Community Events Calendar

Starting From Another Language

• Learning C艹 if you already know Objective-C
• Learning C艹 if you already know C# or Java
• Learning C艹 if you already know C
• How to mix C and C艹

General Topics

• Built-in / Intrinsic / Primitive Data Types
• Input/output via <iostream> and <cstdio>
• Const Correctness
• References
• Memory Management

Classes and Inheritance

• Classes and Objects
• Constructors
• Destructors
• Assignment Operators
• Operator Overloading
• Friends
• Inheritance — Basics
• Inheritance — virtual functions
• Inheritance — Proper Inheritance and Substitutability
• Inheritance — Abstract Base Classes (ABCs)
• Inheritance — What your mother never told you
• Inheritance — private and protected inheritance
• Inheritance — Multiple and Virtual Inheritance

Beyond Classes

• Templates
• Container Classes
• Class Libraries
• Exceptions and Error Handling
• Reference and Value Semantics
• Inline Functions
• Pointers to Member Functions
• Serialization and Unserialization

C艹11

• C艹11 Overview
• C艹11 Language Extensions — General Features
• C艹11 Language Extensions — Classes
• C艹11 Language Extensions — Other Types
• C艹11 Language Extensions — Templates
• C艹11 Language Extensions — Concurrency
• C艹11 Language Extensions — Miscellaneous Language Features
• C艹11 Library Extensions — General Libraries
• C艹11 Library Extensions — Containers and Algorithms
• C艹11 Library Extensions — Concurrency

C艹14

• C艹14 Overview
• C艹14 Language Extensions
• C艹14 Library Extensions

Miscellaneous Q&A

• Compiler Dependencies
• Miscellaneous Technical Issues
• Miscellaneous Environmental Issues
• Miscellaneous Style Issues
• C艹0x Concepts — Historical FAQs
• Myths and Urban Legends About C艹
• Partial List of ISO C艹 Committee Members