For most of C++’s history, the language had no first-class way to say “this function might not have a value to return.” Programmers improvised: a sentinel like string::npos or -1 for indices, a null pointer for objects, a bool return paired with an output…

C++ programmers spend most of their time inside std::string, but the world outside — operating system APIs, the C standard library, third-party SDKs written in C — still speaks in null-terminated character arrays. The bridge between the two is c_str(), and the…

auto as a return type is one of the most quietly useful additions in modern C++ — until the moment you realise it has been silently stripping references and const from your return values. A function that looks like it returns a reference into a…

C and pre-C++17 code modelled “this value is one of several types” with a union and a separate tag — a struct holding the tag, a union holding the payload, and a discipline that the two stay in sync. Forget to update…

The first time most programmers meet virtual, they reach for it the obvious way: any function a derived class might want to override gets marked virtual in the public interface. It works, the hierarchy compiles, and polymorphism does what it advertises. The trouble…

Introduction In #025 – Representing numbers in scientific notation. Part 1 – Planning, we laid the foundation for a program to convert a decimal number into it’s scientific notation equivalent. In this page, we will see the program. The program…

We’re all familiar with this statement which uses a using directive: using namespace std; That tells the compiler to make names from the std namespace available without writing the std:: prefix. However, using can also be used to create a type alias. This creates a custom-defined type…

Because C++ is designed to be portable and performant across a wide range of architectures, the language designers did not want to assume a given CPU would be able to efficiently manipulate values that were narrower than the natural data…

C++ converts between types automatically more often than most programmers realise. Implicit type conversion works behind the scenes, making our life easier. However, just as it helps it also bites. This Nibble will explore this double-edged sword. Where implicit conversion…

Everyone is familiar with std::cout. However, C++ provides 2 other output streams that can be used for a different purpose. Three things to take away: What’s different between the three streams All three streams write text to the program’s output,…