necessary servicing, repair, or correction. If you think you've found an error, please submit the correction using the form you will find at www.BruceEckel.com. (Please use the same

form for non-code errors found in the book.)

///:~

You may use the code in your projects and in the classroom as long as the copyright notice is retained.

Language standards

Throughout this book, when referring to conformance to the ANSI/ISO C standard, I will generally just say ‘C.’ Only if it is necessary to distinguish between Standard C and older, pre-Standard versions of C will I make the distinction.

At this writing the ANSI/ISO C++ committee was finished working on the language. Thus, I will use the term Standard C++ to refer to the standardized language. If I simply refer to C++ you should assume I mean “Standard C++.”

Language support

Your compiler may not support all the features discussed in this book, especially if you don’t have the newest version of your compiler. Implementing a language like C++ is a Herculean task, and you can expect that the features will appear in pieces rather than all at once. But if you attempt one of the examples in the book and get a lot of errors from the compiler, it’s not necessarily a bug in the code or the compiler – it may simply not be implemented in your particular compiler yet.

The book’s CD ROM

Seminars, CD Roms & consulting

My company, MindView, Inc., provides public hands-on training seminars based on the material in this book, and also for advanced topics. Selected material from each chapter represents a lesson, which is followed by a monitored exercise period so each student receives personal attention. We also provide on-site training, consulting, mentoring, and design & code

walkthroughs. Information and sign-up forms for upcoming seminars and other contact information can be found at http://www.BruceEckel.com.

Errors

No matter how many tricks a writer uses to detect errors, some always creep in and these often leap off the page for a fresh reader. If you discover anything you believe to be an error, please use the correction form you will find at http://www.BruceEckel.com. Your help is appreciated.

Acknowledgements

The ideas and understanding in this book have come from many sources: friends like Chuck Allison, Andrea Provaglio, Dan Saks, Scott Meyers, Charles Petzold, and Michael Wilk; pioneers of the language like Bjarne Stroustrup, Andrew Koenig, and Rob Murray; members of the C++ Standards Committee like Nathan Myers (who was particularly helpful and generous with his insights), Tom Plum, Reg Charney, Tom Penello, Sam Druker, and Uwe Steinmueller; people who have spoken in my C++ track at the Software Development Conference; and very often students in my seminars, who ask the questions I need to hear in order to make the material clearer.

I have been presenting this material on tours produced by Miller Freeman Inc. with my friend Richard Hale Shaw. Richard’s insights and support have been very helpful (and Kim’s, too). Thanks also to KoAnn Vikoren, Eric Faurot, Jennifer Jessup, Nicole Freeman, Barbara Hanscome, Regina Ridley, Alex Dunne, and the rest of the cast and crew at MFI.

The book design, cover design, and cover photo were created by my friend Daniel WillHarris, noted author and designer, who used to play with rub-on letters in junior high school while he awaited the invention of computers and desktop publishing. However, I produced the camera-ready pages myself, so the typesetting errors are mine. Microsoft® Word for Windows 97 was used to write the book and to create camera-ready pages. The body typeface is [Times for the electronic distribution] and the headlines are in [Times for the electronic distribution].

A special thanks to all my teachers, and all my students (who are my teachers as well).

Personal thanks to my friends Gen Kiyooka and Kraig Brockschmidt. The supporting cast of friends includes, but is not limited to: Zack Urlocker, Andrew Binstock, Neil Rubenking, Steve Sinofsky, JD Hildebrandt, Brian McElhinney, Brinkley Barr, Larry O’Brien, Bill Gates at Midnight Engineering Magazine, Larry Constantine & Lucy Lockwood, Tom Keffer, Greg Perry, Dan Putterman, Christi Westphal, Gene Wang, Dave Mayer, David Intersimone, Claire Sawyers, Claire Jones, The Italians (Andrea Provaglio, Laura Fallai, Marco Cantu, Corrado, Ilsa and Christina Giustozzi), Chris & Laura Strand, The Almquists, Brad Jerbic, Marilyn Cvitanic, The Mabrys, The Haflingers, The Pollocks, Peter Vinci, The Robbins Families, The Moelter Families (& the McMillans), The Wilks, Dave Stoner, Laurie Adams, The Penneys,

The Cranstons, Larry Fogg, Mike & Karen Sequeira, Gary Entsminger & Allison Brody, Chester Andersen, Joe Lordi, Dave & Brenda Bartlett, The Rentschlers, The Sudeks, Lynn & Todd, and their families. And of course, Mom & Dad.

Part 1: The

Standard C++

Library

Standard C++ not only incorporates all the Standard C libraries, with small additions and changes to support type safety, it also adds libraries of its own. These libraries are far more powerful than those in Standard C; the leverage you get from them is analogous to the leverage you get from changing from C to C++.

This section of the book gives you an in-depth introduction to the most important portions of the Standard C++ library.

The most complete and also the most obscure reference to the full libraries is the Standard itself. Somewhat more readable (and yet still a self-described “expert’s guide”) is Bjarne Stroustrup’s 3rd Edition of The C++ Programming Language (Addison-Wesley, 1997). Another valuable reference is the 3rd edition of C++ Primer, by Lippman & Lajoie. The goal of the chapters in this book that cover the libraries is to provide you with an encyclopedia of descriptions and examples so you’ll have a good starting point for solving any problem that requires the use of the Standard libraries. However, there are some techniques and topics that are used rarely enough that they are not covered here, so if you can’t find it in these chapters you should reach for the other two books; this book is not intended to replace those but rather to complement them. In particular, I hope that after going through the material in the following chapters you’ll have a much easier time understanding those books.

You will notice that this section does not contain exhaustive documentation describing every function and class in the Standard C++ library. I’ve left the full descriptions to others; in particular there a particularly good on-line sources of standard library documentation in HTML format that you can keep resident on your computer and view with a Web browser whenever you need to look something up. This is PJ Plauger’s Dinkumware C/C++ Library reference at http://www.dinkumware.com. You can view this on-line, and purchase it for local

23