C/C++

Est. read time: 3 minutes | Last updated: July 17, 2024 by John Gentile

Contents

The Language
- The Basics
Tools
C++ Libraries
References
- C
- C++
- Repos

The Language

C++ has language facilities similar to the C language such as being a procedural programming language but is vastly different in many ways.

CppCon has great talks on new C++ features as well.

The Basics

The proverbial “Hello, World!” implementation in C and C++ introduces a few basic parts of the language.

#include <stdio.h>

main()
{
  printf("Hello, World!\n");
}

C++:

#include <iostream>

int main()
{
  std::cout << "Hello, World!\n";
}

Tools

Building C++ Programs

C++ must be compiled from source files into object files and then linked into an executable file.

cpp_linking

C++ is a statically typed language in that every entity (i.e. object, name, value, etc.) must be known to the compiler at compile-time.

Compilers

GCC/clang Compiler Flags

Also see gentoo linux’s notes on GCC optimization:

-g: compiler and linker should generate, and retain, source-level debugging/symbol information in the executable itself. Helpful in debugging builds.
-O2/O3: for optimization flags added. Note that you should profile both, as on sometimes -O3 is slower code than -O2.
-march=native: compiles machine-specific instructions for the host CPU running the compile. Can unlock a lot of performance on hosts with SIMD units.

GNU cc (gcc)

gcc is a common compiler for the C language (as well as C++ and Objective C). Debug information and optimizations can also be utilized.

An Introduction to GCC by Brian Gough

LLVM/Clang

Clang Compiler

Online Compilers

ideone: Online compiler and debugging tool that supports over 60 code languages
godbolt: Compiler explorer to examine machine code output for various compile chains supporting a couple code languages (C++, D, Rust, and Go)

Build Systems

GNU Make

When a makefile exists for a given directory/project (under the form makefile, Makefile) simply running the shell command $ make executes commands and instructions given in the makefile.

GNU Make Manual

CMake

CMake

Some other great CMake documentation and repos:

Bazel

Bazel

Testing

GoogleTest: C++ test and mocking framework.
- GoogleTest User Guide

Code Analysis Tools

Valgrind: instrumentation framework to detect memory management and threading bugs.
Facebook Infer: static analysis of C/C++/Objective-C and Java code.
clangd Language Server: adds code completion, compile errors, go-to-definition and other features to tools that use the Language Server Protocol (LSP).
- clang-tidy: linting tool for style violations, interface misuse or bugs that can be deduced via static analysis.
  - cpplint: similar to clang-tidy, but specifically for Google’s C/C++ Style Guide.
- clang-format: a tool to format C/C++ (and other similar language) code.
  - Uncrustify: similar tool for reformatting.
- oclint: static source code analysis tool for C/C++ and Objective-C.
  - cppcheck: another static analysis tool for C/C++ code.

Other Tools

cdecl: C gibberish ↔ English translator.
Doxygen: generates documentation from inline comments in source code.

C++ Libraries

Boost
- The Boost C++ Libraries by Boris Schaling

References

C

C++

The Standard: website for the current and draft ISO C++ standards
- C++ Core Guildelines
- C++ FAQ
The C++ Annotations by Frank B. Brokken
Google C++ Style Guide
C++ High Performance, Second Edition
- Repo for book
Microsoft C/C++ Documentation