Essential C++

Essential C++ is a free book about C++ programming language.

It's part of Essential Programming Books.

It's written to provide clear and concise explanation of topics for both beginner and advanced programmers.

Most examples are linked to online playground that allows you to change the code and re-run it.

You can also quickly navigate to desired content using table of content on the left and search at the top (tip: you can navigate search using only a keyboard with '/' shortcut to start a search).

The content is based on now abandoned StackOverflow Documentation project. It has been heavily edited and improved.

Content is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0.

Chapters
1 Getting started
2 Literals
3 Basic type keywords
4 Operator precedence
5 Floating point arithmetic
6 Bit operators
7 Bit manipulation
8 Bit fields
9 Arrays
10 Flow control
11 const keyword
12 Loops
13 mutable keyword
14 friend keyword
15 keywords
16 Variable declaration keywords
17 auto keyword
18 Pointers
19 Type keywords (class, enum, struct, union)
20 Classes / structs
21 std::string
22 Enumeration
23 std::atomic<T>
24 std::vector
25 std::array
26 std::pair
27 std::map
28 std::unordered_map
29 std::set and std::multiset
30 std::any
31 std::variant
32 std::optional
33 std::integer_sequence
34 std::function
35 std::forward_list
36 std::iomanip
37 Iterators
38 Basic I/O
39 File I/O
40 Streams
41 Stream manipulators
42 Metaprogramming
43 Returning multiple values from a function
44 References
45 Polymorphism
46 Value and reference semantics
47 Function call by value vs. by reference
48 Copying vs assignment
49 Pointers to class / struct members
50 The this pointer
51 Smart pointers
52 Unions
53 Templates
54 Namespaces
55 Function overloading
56 Operator overloading
57 Lambdas
58 Threading
59 Value categories
60 Preprocessor
61 SFINAE
62 Rule of three, five and zero
63 RAII
64 Exceptions
65 Implementation-defined behavior
66 Special member functions
67 Random numbers
68 Sorting
69 Regular expressions
70 Perfect forwarding
71 Virtual member functions
72 Undefined behavior
73 Overload resolution
74 Move semantics
75 Pimpl idiom
76 Copy elision
77 Fold expressions
78 Unnamed types
79 Singleton
80 ISO C++ Standard
81 User-defined literals
82 Type erasure
83 Memory management
84 Explicit type conversions
85 RTTI
86 Standard library algorithms
87 Expression templates
88 Scopes
89 Atomic types
90 static assert
91 constexpr
92 Date and time with std::chrono
93 Trailing return type
94 Function template overloading
95 Common compile linker errors
96 Design patterns
97 Optimizations
98 Compiling and building
99 Type traits
100 One definition rule
101 Unspecified behavio
102 Argument dependent name lookup
103 Attributes
104 Internationalization
105 Profiling
106 Return type covariance
107 Non-static member functions
108 Recursion
109 Callable objects
110 Constant class member functions
111 C++ vs. C++ 11 vs C++ 17
112 Inline functions
113 Client server examples
114 Header files
115 Const correctness
116 Refactoring techniques
117 Parameter packs
118 Iteration
119 type deduction
120 C++ 11 memory model
121 Build systems
122 Concurrency with OpenMP
123 Type inference
124 Resource management
125 Storage class specifiers
126 Alignment
127 Inline variables
128 Linkage specifications
129 Curiusly recurring template pattern
130 Using declaration
131 Typedef and type aliases
132 Layout of object types
133 C incompatibilities
134 Optimization
135 Semaphore
136 Thread synchronization
137 Debugging
138 Futures and promises
139 More undefined behaviors
140 Mutexes
141 Recursive mutex
142 Unit testing
143 decltype
144 Digit separators
145 C++ Containers
146 Arithmetic meta-programming
147 Contributors