Nicolai M. Josuttis - The C++ Standard Library: A Tutorial and Reference

A Tutorial and Reference

Second Edition

Nicolai M. Josuttis

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Nicolai M. Josuttis

A Tutorial and Reference

Second Edition

Supplementary Chapter

Print book ISBN-13: 978-0-321-62321-8
Print book ISBN-10: 0-321-62321-5
Copyright 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.
All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Josuttis, Nicolai M.
The C++ standard library : a tutorial and reference / Nicolai M. Josuttis.2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-321-62321-8 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. C++ (Computer program language) I. Title.
QA76.73.C153J69 2012
005.133-dc23
2011045071

Copyright 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

This book was typeset by the author using the LATEX document processing system.

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. This publication is protected by copyright, and permission must be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or likewise. To obtain permission to use material from this work, please submit a written request to Pearson Education, Inc., Permissions Department, One Lake Street, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458, or you may fax your request to (201) 236-3290.

ISBN-13: 978-0-321-62321-8
ISBN-10: 0-321-62321-5

Text printed in the United States on recycled paper at Edwards Brothers in Ann Arbor, Michigan. First printing, March 2012

To those who care
for people and mankind

This Supplementary Chapter provides additional material that could not be included in The C++ Standard Library, Second Edition, due to its size.

I never thought that the first edition of this book would sell so long. But now, after twelve years, its time for a new edition that covers C++11, the new C++ standard.

Note that this means more than simply adding new libraries. C++ has changed. Almost all typical applications of parts of the library look a bit different now. This is not the result of a huge language change. Its the result of many minor changes, such as using rvalue references and move semantics, range-based for loops, auto, and new template features. Thus, besides presenting new libraries and supplementary features of existing libraries, almost all of the examples in this book were rewritten at least partially. Nevertheless, to support programmers who still use old C++ environments, this book will describe differences between C++ versions whenever they appear.

I learned C++11 the hard way. Because I didnt follow the standardization as it was happening I started to look at C++11 about two years ago. I really had trouble understanding it. But the people on the standardization committee helped me to describe and present the new features as they are intended to be used now.

Note, finally, that this book now has a problem: Although the books size grew from about 800 to more than 1,100 pages, I still cant present the C++ standard library as a whole. The library part of the new C++11 standard alone now has about 750 pages, written in very condensed form without much explanation. For this reason, I had to decide which features to describe and in how much detail. Again, many people in the C++ community helped me to make this decision. The intent was to concentrate on what the average application programmer needs. For some missing parts, I provide a supplementary chapter on the Web site of this book, http://www.cppstdlib.com, but you still will find details not mentioned here in the standard.

The art of teaching is not the art of presenting everything. Its the art of separating the wheat from the chaff so that you get the most out of it. May the exercise succeed.

This book presents ideas, concepts, solutions, and examples from many sources. Over the past several years, the C++ community introduced many ideas, concepts, proposals, and enhancements to C++ that became part of C++11. Thus, again Id like to thank all the people who helped and supported me while preparing this new edition.

First, Id like to thank everyone in the C++ community and on the C++ standardization committee. Besides all the work to add new language and library features, they had a hard time explaining everything to me, but they did so with patience and enthusiasm.

Scott Meyers and Anthony Williams allowed me to use their teaching material and book manuscripts so that I could find many useful examples not yet publicly available.

Id also like to thank everyone who reviewed this book and gave valuable feedback and clarifications: Dave Abrahams, Alberto Ganesh Barbati, Pete Becker, Thomas Becker, Hans Boehm, Walter E. Brown, Paolo Carlini, Lawrence Crowl, Beman Dawes, Doug Gregor, David Grigsby, Pablo Halpern, Howard Hinnant, John Lakos, Bronek Kozicki, Dietmar Khl, Daniel Krgler, Mat Marcus, Jens Maurer, Alisdair Meredith, Bartosz Milewski, P. J. Plauger, Tobias Schle, Peter Sommerlad, Jonathan Wakely, and Anthony Williams.

There is one person who did an especially outstanding job. Whenever I had a question, Daniel Krgler answered almost immediately with incredible accurateness and knowledge. Everyone in the standardization process know that he treats everybody this way. Without him, both the C++ standard and this book would not have the quality they have now.

Many thanks to my editor Peter Gordon, Kim Boedigheimer, John Fuller, and Anna Popick from Addison-Wesley. Besides their support, they found the right balance between patience and pressure. The copy editor Evelyn Pyle and the proofreader Diane Freed did an incredible job translating my German English into American English. In addition, thanks to Frank Mittelbach for solving my LATEX issues.

Last but not least, all my thanks go to Jutta Eckstein. Jutta has the wonderful ability to force and support people in their ideals, ideas, and goals. While most people experience this only when working with her, I have the honor to benefit in my day-to-day life.

In the beginning, I only planned to write a small German book (400 pages or so) about the C++ standard library. That was in 1993. Now, in 1999 you see the result a book in English with more than 800 pages of facts, figures, and examples. My goal is to describe the C++ standard library so that all (or almost all) your programming questions are answered before you think of the question. Note, however, that this is not a complete description of all aspects of the C++ standard library. Instead, I present the most important topics necessary for learning and programming in C++ by using its standard library.