Programming: Principles and Practice Using C++

by Bjarne Stroustrup

Overview

An introduction to programming by the inventor of C++,  Programming prepares students for programming in the real world. This book assumes that they aim eventually to write non-trivial programs, whether for work in software development or in some other technical field. It explains fundamental concepts and techniques in greater depth than traditional introductions. This approach gives students a solid foundation for writing useful, correct, maintainable, and efficient code. This book is an introduction to programming in general, including object-oriented programming and generic programming. It is also a solid introduction to the C++ programming language, one of the most widely used languages for real-world software. It presents modern C++ programming techniques from the start, introducing the C++ standard library to simplify programming tasks.

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780133796742
Publisher:	Pearson Education
Publication date:	06/02/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	1312
File size:	79 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Bjarne Stroustrup is the designer and original implementer of C++, as well as the author of The C++ Programming Language (4th Edition), A Tour of C++ (3rd edition), Programming: Principles and Practice Using C++ (3rd Edition), and many popular and academic publications. He is a professor of Computer Science at Columbia University in New York City. Dr. Stroustrup is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering, and an IEEE, ACM, and CHM fellow. He received the 2018 Charles Stark Draper Prize, the IEEE Computer Society's 2018 Computer Pioneer Award, and the 2017 IET Faraday Medal.

Read an Excerpt

“Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead.”
—Admiral Farragut

Programming is the art of expressing solutions to problems so that a computer can execute those solutions. Much of the effort in programming is spent finding and refining solutions. Often, a problem is only fully understood through the process of programming a solution for it.

This book is for someone who has never programmed before, but is willing to work hard to learn. It helps you acquire the principles and practical skills of programming using the C++ programming language. My aim is for you to gain sufficient knowledge and experience to perform simple useful programming tasks using the best up-to-date techniques. How long will that take? As part of a first-year university course, you can work through this book in a semester (assuming that you have a workload of four courses of average difficulty). If you work by yourself, don’t expect to spend less time than that (maybe 15 hours a week for 14 weeks).

Three months may seem a long time, but there’s a lot to learn and you’ll be writing your first simple programs after about an hour. Also, all learning is gradual: each chapter introduces new useful concepts and illustrates them with examples inspired by real-world uses. Your ability to express ideas in code — getting a computer to do what you want it to do — gradually and steadily increases as you go along. I never say “learn a month’s worth of theory and then see if you can use it.”

Why would you want to program? Our civilization runs on software. Without understanding software you are reduced to believing in “magic” and will be locked out of many of the most interesting, profitable, and socially useful technical fields of work. When I talk about programming, I think of the whole spectrum of computer programs from personal computer applications with GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces), through engineering calculations and embedded system control applications (such as digital cameras, cars, and cell phones), to text manipulation applications as found in many humanities and business applications. Like mathematics, programming — when done well — is a valuable intellectual exercise that sharpens our ability to think. However, thanks to feedback from the computer, programming is more concrete than most forms of math, and therefore accessible to more people. It is a way to reach out and change the world — hopefully for the better. Finally, programming can be great fun.

Why C++? You can’t learn to program without a programming language and C++ directly supports the key concepts and techniques used in real-world software. C++ is one of the most widely used programming languages, found in an unsurpassed range of application areas. You find C++ applications everywhere from the bottom of the oceans to the surface of Mars. C++ is precisely and comprehensively defined by a non-proprietary international standard. Quality and/or free implementations are available on every kind of computer. Most of the programming concepts that you will learn using C++ can be used directly in other languages, such as C, C#, Fortran, and Java. Finally, I simply like C++ as a language for writing elegant and efficient code.

This is not the easiest book on beginning programming; it is not meant to be. I just aim for it to be the easiest book from which you can learn the basics of real-world programming. That’s quite an ambitious goal because much modern software relies on techniques considered advanced just a few years ago.

My fundamental assumption is that you want to write programs for the use of others, and to do so responsibly providing a decent level of system quality. That is, I assume that you want to achieve a level of professionalism. Consequently, I chose the topics for this book to cover what is needed to get started with real-world programming, not just what is easy to teach and learn. If you need a technique to get basic work done right, I’ll describe it, demonstrate concepts and language facilities needed to support the technique, provide exercises for it, and expect you to work on those exercises. If you just want to understand toy programs, you can get along with far less than I present. On the other hand, I won’t waste your time with material of marginal practical importance. If an idea is explained here, it’s because you’ll almost certainly need it.

If your desire is to use the work of others without understanding how things are done and without adding significantly to the code yourself, this book is not for you. If so, please consider if you would be better served by another book and another language. If that is approximately your view of programming, please also consider from where you got that view and whether it in fact is adequate for your needs. People often underestimate the complexity of programming as well as its value. I would hate for you to acquire a dislike for programming because of a mismatch between what you needed and the part of the software reality I describe. There are many parts of the “Information Technology” world that do not require knowledge of programming. This book is aimed to serve those who do want to write nontrivial programs.

Because of its structure and practical aims, this book can also be used as a second book on programming for someone who already knows a bit of C++ or for someone who programs in another language and wants to learn C++. If you fit into one of those categories, I refrain from guessing how long it will take you to read this book, but I do encourage you to do many of our exercises. This will help you to counteract the common problem of writing programs in older, familiar, styles rather than adopting newer techniques where these are more appropriate. If you have learned C++ in one of the more traditional ways, you’ll find something surprising and useful before you reach Chapter 7. Unless your name is Stroustrup, what I discuss here is not “your father’s C++.”

Programming is learned by writing programs. In this, programming is similar to other endeavors with a practical component. You cannot learn to swim, to play a musical instrument, or to drive a car just from reading a book — you must practice. Nor can you learn to program without reading and writing lots of code. This book focuses on code examples closely tied to explanatory text and diagrams. You need those to understand the ideals, concepts, and principles of programming and to master the language constructs used to express them. That’s essential, but by itself, it will not give you the practical skills of programming. For that, you need to do the exercises and get used to the tools for writing, compiling, and running programs. You need to make your own mistakes, and learn to correct them. There is no substitute for writing code. Besides, that’s where the fun is!

On the other hand, there is more to programming — much more — than following a few rules and reading the manual. This book is emphatically not focused on “the syntax of C++.” Understanding the fundamental ideals, principles, and techniques is essence of a good programmer. Only well-designed code has a chance of becoming part of a correct, reliable, and maintainable system. Also, “the fundamentals” are what lasts: they will still be essential after today’s languages and tools have evolved or been replaced.

What about computer science, software engineering, information technology, etc.? Is that all programming? Of course not! Programming is one of the fundamental topics that underlie everything in computer-related fields and has a natural place in a balanced course of computer science. I provide brief introductions to key concepts and techniques of algorithms, data structures, user interfaces, data processing, and software engineering. However, this book is not a substitute for a thorough and balanced study of those topics.

Code can be beautiful as well as useful. This book is written to help you see that, to understand what it means for code to be beautiful and to help you to acquire the principles and practical skills to create such code. Good luck with programming!

A note to students

Of the 1,000++ first-year students we have taught so far using drafts of this book at Texas A&M University, about 60% had programmed before and about 40% had never seen a line of code in their life. Most succeeded, so you can do it too.

You don’t have to read this book as part of a course. I assume that the book will be widely used for self study. However, whether you work your way through as part of a course or independently, try to work with others. Programming has an — unfair — reputation as a lonely activity. Most people work better and learn faster when they are part of a group with a common aim. Learning together and discussing problems with friends is not cheating! It is the most efficient — as well as most pleasant — way of making progress. If nothing else, working with friends forces you to articulate your ideas, which is just about the most efficient way of testing your understanding and making sure you remember. You don’t actually have to personally discover the answer to every obscure language and programming environment problem. However, please don’t cheat yourself by not doing the drills and a fair number of exercises (even if no teacher forces you to do them). Remember: programming is (among other things) a practical skill that you need to practice to master. If you don’t write code (do several exercises for each chapter), reading this book will become a pointless theoretical exercise.

Most students — especially thoughtful good students — face times where they wonder whether their hard work is worthwhile. When (not if) this happens to you, take a break, re-read the foreword, look at Chapter 1 (“Computers, People, and Programming”) and Chapter 22 (“Ideals and History”). There, I try to articulate what I find exciting about programming and why I consider it a crucial tool for making a positive contribution to the world. If you wonder about my teaching philosophy and general approach, have a look at Chapter 0 (“Notes to the Reader”).

You might find the weight of this book worrying, but it should reassure you that part of the reason for the heft is that I prefer to repeat an explanation or add an example rather than have you search for the one and only explanation. The other major part of the reason is that the last third of the book is “additional material” presented for you to explore only if you are interested in more information about a specific area of programming, such as embedded systems programming, text analysis, or numerical computation.

And please don’t be too impatient. Learning any major new and valuable skill takes time, and is worth it.

A note to teachers

No, this is not a traditional Computer Science 101 course. It is a book about how to construct working software. As such, it leaves out much of what a computer science student is traditionally exposed to (Turing completeness, state machines, discrete math, Chomsky grammars, etc.). Even hardware is ignored on the assumption that students have used computers in various ways since kindergarten. This book does not even try to mention most important CS topics. It is about programming (or more generally about how to develop software) and as such it goes into more detail about fewer topics than many traditional courses. It tries to do just one thing well and Computer Science is not a one-course topic. If this book/course is used as part of a computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering (many of our first students were EE majors) information science, or whatever program, I expect it to be taught alongside other courses as part of a well-rounded introduction.

Please read Chapter 0 (“Notes to the Reader”) for an explanation of my teaching philosophy, general approach, etc. Please try to convey those ideas to your students along the way.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Chapter 0: Notes to the Reader 1
0.1 The structure of this book 2
0.2 A philosophy of teaching and learning 5
0.3 ISO standard C++ 8
0.4 PPP support 11
0.5 Author biography 13
0.6 Bibliography 13

Part I: The Basics

Chapter 1: Hello, World! 17
1.1 Programs 18
1.2 The classic first program 18
1.3 Compilation 21
1.4 Linking 23
1.5 Programming environments 24

Chapter 2: Objects, Types, and Values 29
2.1 Input 30
2.2 Variables 32
2.3 Input and type 33
2.4 Operations and operators 34
2.5 Assignment and initialization 36
2.6 Names 40
2.7 Types and objects 42
2.8 Type safety 43
2.9 Conversions 44
2.10 Type deduction: auto 46

Chapter 3 Computation 51
3.1 Computation 52
3.2 Objectives and tools 53
3.3 Expressions 55
3.4 Statements 58
3.5 Functions 68
3.6 vector 71
3.7 Language features 77

Chapter 4: Errors! 83
4.1 Introduction 84
4.2 Sources of errors 85
4.3 Compile-time errors 86
4.4 Link-time errors 88
4.5 Run-time errors 89
4.6 Exceptions 94
4.7 Avoiding and finding errors 99

Chapter 5: Writing a Program 115
5.1 A problem 116
5.2 Thinking about the problem 116
5.3 Back to the calculator! 119
5.4 Back to the drawing board 126
5.5 Turning a grammar into code 130
5.6 Trying the first version 136
5.7 Trying the second version 140
5.8 Token streams 142
5.9 Program structure 146

Chapter 6: Completing a Program 151
6.1 Introduction 152
6.2 Input and output 152
6.3 Error handling 154
6.4 Negative numbers 156
6.5 Remainder: % 157
6.6 Cleaning up the code 158
6.7 Recovering from errors164
6.8 Variables 167

Chapter 7: Technicalities: Functions, etc. 179
7.1 Technicalities 180
7.2 Declarations and definitions 181
7.3 Scope 186
7.4 Function call and return 190
7.5 Order of evaluation 206
7.6 Namespaces 209
7.7 Modules and headers 211

Chapter 8: Technicalities: Classes, etc. 221
8.1 User-defined types 222
8.2 Classes and members 223
8.3 Interface and implementation 223
8.4 Evolving a class: Date 225
8.5 Enumerations 233
8.6 Operator overloading 236
8.7 Class interfaces 237

Part II: Input and Output

Chapter 9: Input and Output Streams 251
9.1 Input and output 252
9.2 The I/O stream model 253
9.3 Files 254
9.4 I/O error handling 258
9.5 Reading a single value 261
9.6 User-defined output operators 266
9.7 User-defined input operators 266
9.8 A standard input loop 267
9.9 Reading a structured file 269
9.10 Formatting 276
9.11 String streams 283

Chapter 10: A Display Model 289
10.1 Why graphics? 290
10.2 A display model 290
10.3 A first example 292
10.4 Using a GUI library 295
10.5 Coordinates 296
10.6 Shapes 297
10.7 Using Shape primitives297
10.8 Getting the first example to run 309

Chapter 11: Graphics Classes 315
11.1 Overview of graphics classes 316
11.2 Point and Line 317
11.3 Lines 320
11.4 Color 323
11.5 Line_style 325
11.6 Polylines 328
11.7 Closed shapes 333
11.8 Text 346
11.9 Mark 348
11.10 Image 350

Chapter 12: Class Design 355
12.1 Design principles 356
12.2 Shape 360
12.3 Base and derived classes 367
12.4 Other Shape functions 375
12.5 Benefits of object-oriented programming 376

Chapter 13: Graphing Functions and Data 381
13.1 Introduction 382
13.2 Graphing simple functions 382
13.3 Function 386
13.4 Axis 390
13.5 Approximation 392
13.6 Graphing data 397

Chapter 14: Graphical User Interfaces 409
14.1 User-interface alternatives 410
14.2 The “Next” button 411
14.3 A simple window 412
14.4 Button and other Widgets 414
14.5 An example: drawing lines 419
14.6 Simple animation 426
14.7 Debugging GUI code 427

Part III: Data and Algorithms

Chapter 15: Vector and Free Store 435
15.1 Introduction 436
15.2 vector basics 437
15.3 Memory, addresses, and pointers 439
15.4 Free store and pointers 442
15.5 Destructors 447
15.6 Access to elements 451
15.7 An example: lists 452
15.8 The this pointer 456

Chapter 16: Arrays, Pointers, and References 463
16.1 Arrays 464
16.2 Pointers and references468
16.3 C-style strings 471
16.4 Alternatives to pointer use 472
16.5 An example: palindromes 475

Chapter 17: Essential Operations 483
17.1 Introduction 484
17.2 Access to elements 484
17.3 List initialization 486
17.4 Copying and moving 488
17.5 Essential operations 495
17.6 Other useful operations500
17.7 Remaining Vector problems 502
17.8 Changing size 504
17.9 Our Vector so far 509

Chapter 18: Templates and Exceptions 513
18.1 Templates 514
18.2 Generalizing Vector 522
18.3 Range checking and exceptions 525
18.4 Resources and exceptions 529
18.5 Resource-management pointers 537

Chapter 19: Containers and Iterators 545
19.1 Storing and processing data 546
19.2 Sequences and iterators552
19.3 Linked lists 555
19.4 Generalizing Vector yet again 560
19.5 An example: a simple text editor 566
19.6 vector, list, and string 572

Chapter 20: Maps and Sets 577
20.1 Associative containers 578
20.2 map 578
20.3 unordered_map 585
20.4 Timing 586
20.5 set 589
20.6 Container overview 591
20.7 Ranges and iterators 597

Chapter 21: Algorithms 603
21.1 Standard-library algorithms 604
21.2 Function objects 610
21.3 Numerical algorithms 614
21.4 Copying 619
21.5 Sorting and searching 620

Index 625

Preface

“Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead.”
—Admiral Farragut

Programming is the art of expressing solutions to problems so that a computer can execute those solutions. Much of the effort in programming is spent finding and refining solutions. Often, a problem is only fully understood through the process of programming a solution for it.

This book is for someone who has never programmed before, but is willing to work hard to learn. It helps you acquire the principles and practical skills of programming using the C++ programming language. My aim is for you to gain sufficient knowledge and experience to perform simple useful programming tasks using the best up-to-date techniques. How long will that take? As part of a first-year university course, you can work through this book in a semester (assuming that you have a workload of four courses of average difficulty). If you work by yourself, don’t expect to spend less time than that (maybe 15 hours a week for 14 weeks).

Three months may seem a long time, but there’s a lot to learn and you’ll be writing your first simple programs after about an hour. Also, all learning is gradual: each chapter introduces new useful concepts and illustrates them with examples inspired by real-world uses. Your ability to express ideas in code — getting a computer to do what you want it to do — gradually and steadily increases as you go along. I never say “learn a month’s worth of theory and then see if you can use it.”

Why would you want to program? Our civilization runs on software. Without understanding software you are reduced to believing in “magic” and will be locked out of many of the most interesting, profitable, and socially useful technical fields of work. When I talk about programming, I think of the whole spectrum of computer programs from personal computer applications with GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces), through engineering calculations and embedded system control applications (such as digital cameras, cars, and cell phones), to text manipulation applications as found in many humanities and business applications. Like mathematics, programming — when done well — is a valuable intellectual exercise that sharpens our ability to think. However, thanks to feedback from the computer, programming is more concrete than most forms of math, and therefore accessible to more people. It is a way to reach out and change the world — hopefully for the better. Finally, programming can be great fun.

Why C++? You can’t learn to program without a programming language and C++ directly supports the key concepts and techniques used in real-world software. C++ is one of the most widely used programming languages, found in an unsurpassed range of application areas. You find C++ applications everywhere from the bottom of the oceans to the surface of Mars. C++ is precisely and comprehensively defined by a non-proprietary international standard. Quality and/or free implementations are available on every kind of computer. Most of the programming concepts that you will learn using C++ can be used directly in other languages, such as C, C#, Fortran, and Java. Finally, I simply like C++ as a language for writing elegant and efficient code.

This is not the easiest book on beginning programming; it is not meant to be. I just aim for it to be the easiest book from which you can learn the basics of real-world programming. That’s quite an ambitious goal because much modern software relies on techniques considered advanced just a few years ago.

My fundamental assumption is that you want to write programs for the use of others, and to do so responsibly providing a decent level of system quality. That is, I assume that you want to achieve a level of professionalism. Consequently, I chose the topics for this book to cover what is needed to get started with real-world programming, not just what is easy to teach and learn. If you need a technique to get basic work done right, I’ll describe it, demonstrate concepts and language facilities needed to support the technique, provide exercises for it, and expect you to work on those exercises. If you just want to understand toy programs, you can get along with far less than I present. On the other hand, I won’t waste your time with material of marginal practical importance. If an idea is explained here, it’s because you’ll almost certainly need it.

If your desire is to use the work of others without understanding how things are done and without adding significantly to the code yourself, this book is not for you. If so, please consider if you would be better served by another book and another language. If that is approximately your view of programming, please also consider from where you got that view and whether it in fact is adequate for your needs. People often underestimate the complexity of programming as well as its value. I would hate for you to acquire a dislike for programming because of a mismatch between what you needed and the part of the software reality I describe. There are many parts of the “Information Technology” world that do not require knowledge of programming. This book is aimed to serve those who do want to write nontrivial programs.

Because of its structure and practical aims, this book can also be used as a second book on programming for someone who already knows a bit of C++ or for someone who programs in another language and wants to learn C++. If you fit into one of those categories, I refrain from guessing how long it will take you to read this book, but I do encourage you to do many of our exercises. This will help you to counteract the common problem of writing programs in older, familiar, styles rather than adopting newer techniques where these are more appropriate. If you have learned C++ in one of the more traditional ways, you’ll find something surprising and useful before you reach Chapter 7. Unless your name is Stroustrup, what I discuss here is not “your father’s C++.”

Programming is learned by writing programs. In this, programming is similar to other endeavors with a practical component. You cannot learn to swim, to play a musical instrument, or to drive a car just from reading a book — you must practice. Nor can you learn to program without reading and writing lots of code. This book focuses on code examples closely tied to explanatory text and diagrams. You need those to understand the ideals, concepts, and principles of programming and to master the language constructs used to express them. That’s essential, but by itself, it will not give you the practical skills of programming. For that, you need to do the exercises and get used to the tools for writing, compiling, and running programs. You need to make your own mistakes, and learn to correct them. There is no substitute for writing code. Besides, that’s where the fun is!

On the other hand, there is more to programming — much more — than following a few rules and reading the manual. This book is emphatically not focused on “the syntax of C++.” Understanding the fundamental ideals, principles, and techniques is essence of a good programmer. Only well-designed code has a chance of becoming part of a correct, reliable, and maintainable system. Also, “the fundamentals” are what lasts: they will still be essential after today’s languages and tools have evolved or been replaced.

What about computer science, software engineering, information technology, etc.? Is that all programming? Of course not! Programming is one of the fundamental topics that underlie everything in computer-related fields and has a natural place in a balanced course of computer science. I provide brief introductions to key concepts and techniques of algorithms, data structures, user interfaces, data processing, and software engineering. However, this book is not a substitute for a thorough and balanced study of those topics.

Code can be beautiful as well as useful. This book is written to help you see that, to understand what it means for code to be beautiful and to help you to acquire the principles and practical skills to create such code. Good luck with programming!

A note to students

Of the 1,000++ first-year students we have taught so far using drafts of this book at Texas A&M University, about 60% had programmed before and about 40% had never seen a line of code in their life. Most succeeded, so you can do it too.

You don’t have to read this book as part of a course. I assume that the book will be widely used for self study. However, whether you work your way through as part of a course or independently, try to work with others. Programming has an — unfair — reputation as a lonely activity. Most people work better and learn faster when they are part of a group with a common aim. Learning together and discussing problems with friends is not cheating! It is the most efficient — as well as most pleasant — way of making progress. If nothing else, working with friends forces you to articulate your ideas, which is just about the most efficient way of testing your understanding and making sure you remember. You don’t actually have to personally discover the answer to every obscure language and programming environment problem. However, please don’t cheat yourself by not doing the drills and a fair number of exercises (even if no teacher forces you to do them). Remember: programming is (among other things) a practical skill that you need to practice to master. If you don’t write code (do several exercises for each chapter), reading this book will become a pointless theoretical exercise.

Most students — especially thoughtful good students — face times where they wonder whether their hard work is worthwhile. When (not if) this happens to you, take a break, re-read the foreword, look at Chapter 1 (“Computers, People, and Programming”) and Chapter 22 (“Ideals and History”). There, I try to articulate what I find exciting about programming and why I consider it a crucial tool for making a positive contribution to the world. If you wonder about my teaching philosophy and general approach, have a look at Chapter 0 (“Notes to the Reader”).

You might find the weight of this book worrying, but it should reassure you that part of the reason for the heft is that I prefer to repeat an explanation or add an example rather than have you search for the one and only explanation. The other major part of the reason is that the last third of the book is “additional material” presented for you to explore only if you are interested in more information about a specific area of programming, such as embedded systems programming, text analysis, or numerical computation.

And please don’t be too impatient. Learning any major new and valuable skill takes time, and is worth it.

A note to teachers

No, this is not a traditional Computer Science 101 course. It is a book about how to construct working software. As such, it leaves out much of what a computer science student is traditionally exposed to (Turing completeness, state machines, discrete math, Chomsky grammars, etc.). Even hardware is ignored on the assumption that students have used computers in various ways since kindergarten. This book does not even try to mention most important CS topics. It is about programming (or more generally about how to develop software) and as such it goes into more detail about fewer topics than many traditional courses. It tries to do just one thing well and Computer Science is not a one-course topic. If this book/course is used as part of a computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering (many of our first students were EE majors) information science, or whatever program, I expect it to be taught alongside other courses as part of a well-rounded introduction.

Please read Chapter 0 (“Notes to the Reader”) for an explanation of my teaching philosophy, general approach, etc. Please try to convey those ideas to your students along the way.