Back To Basics: The Special Member Functions - Klaus Iglberger - CppCon 2021

cppcon.org/
github.com/CppCon/CppCon2021
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The six special member functions. Do you know them all? Do you know when the compiler generates them for you and what they are doing? And most importantly, do you know when they don’t give you what you expect? In this talk I will explain the six special members in detail. We will take a look at the exact circumstances when a compiler would generate these functions, what they are doing by default and when we should deal with them manually. Also, among many other guidelines I’ll explain why we should strive for the Rule of 0, why the Rule of 5 is sometimes unavoidable, and why the Rule of 3 is not obsolete.
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Klaus Iglberger
Klaus Iglberger is a freelancing C++ trainer and consultant. He has finished his PhD in computer science in 2010 and since then is focused on large-scale C++ software design. He shares his experience in popular advanced C++ courses around the world (mainly in Germany, but also the EU and US). Additionally, he is the initiator and lead designer of the Blaze C++ math library (bitbucket.org/blaze-lib/blaze...) and one of the organizers of the Munich C++ user group (www.meetup.com/MUCplusplus/).
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Videos Streamed & Edited by Digital Medium: online.digital-medium.co.uk
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[@dragonwarrior3356]

I feel Klaus is the only person who bring contents which every C++ programmer needs. Great presenter !!

[@thestarinthesky_]

Klaus is the best❤ thanks for sharing videos and classifying “back to basic” on the playlist! It has helped beginners like me a lot ❤appreciate it 🌸

[@9uiop]

Great talk! Whether it's a B2B or more advanced topic, Klaus has a great way explaining things.

[@CppCon]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@niteshkumarsukumaran]

Love watching Klaus explaining things to the point! Thanks for doing this 👍

[@CppCon]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@kacperkrol4394]

To be honest, imho Klaus You are the best lecturer on cppcon. Great job!

[@dkutagulla]

Absolutely Amazing! You are my c++ teacher

[@germancaino]

Excellent talk, as always from Klaus.

[@CppCon]

Thanks for listening

[@kuijaye]

Great talk. Idk how i can thank you cppcon and esp Klaus.

[@yuvalboker557]

You are an amazing teacher!

[@SuperMopga]

Vielen Dank, Klaus!

[@SamWhitlock]

43:03 the example I always go to about where self assignment could occur is in a buggy implementation of quicksort. If the algorithm to swap values around the pivot is not implemented correctly and one has an odd number of elements, the buggy algorithm may decide to swap the last item (where both the high and low cursors point to the same value); after all, any value should not be less than itself if std::less is being used. "just don't get into a situation where self-assignment is possible" is nice in theory, but in real codebases (especially with template code) it happens, and it's preferable to limp along with misuse of the assignment operator than it is to blow up in a strange way.

[@samolisov]

33:33 If the copy assignment operator is implemented as it is written on the slide, this is a good point where pass by value can simplify the code a little bit: Widget(Widget other). But passing by reference brings some flexibility and we can check some conditions as it was done at 33:55.

[@maneshipocrates2264]

Greta talk... but is it okay to declare your copy constructor as Widget(const Widget& someVar)?

[@johnhsu5459]

=delete Does not delist the function but to disable it. Only shit I hope committee try another keyword instead, this answers a bunch of my problems..

[@hemangandhi4596]

I wish this went over the ordering of the initialization and deletion because I keep getting clang-tidy warnings about initialization order and it's quite confusing.

[@darranrowe174]

Without further information then there has to be a certain amount of guessing going on. The most common initialisation order issue is where members are not initialised in the same order as they are declared. struct s { s() : b(0), a(1) {} int a; int b; }; The reason why this is an issue is that the compiler will initialise members in the order that they are declared, not the order that the constructor initialises them in the initialiser list. So as an example, what do you think would happen if the constructor was: s() : b(0), a(b) {} ? If you guess that a will contain an undefined value then congratulations.

[@meowsqueak]

If you write a base class, and therefore (as per best practices) declare a _virtual_ destructor even if it doesn't actually do anything, does that mean you then have to explicitly provide (or declare =default) the copy constructors as well? I've seen cases where a new abstract base class with a virtual destructor is defined, just for this purpose, and then the other 5 special member functions are =default - but that seems onerous to do every single time one wants to write a potential base class.

[@germancaino]

I was going to ask the same thing.

[@victorcruceru3246]

Lots of slides where the author has written "delete resource" instead of "delete pr".

[@vishalbhadre178]

#56.00 Assignment operation needs to return *this because it is required in cascaded assignment

[@__hannibaal__]

What happen if put destructor in private: and call them by member function as pointer; Like private : ~Widget(){//…….//} Public: ….. ….. Void deleted(){ this->~Widget();} } Than you can call it or not call it … Is there other trick about it , what happen if not deleted or not call it.

[@flocela]

Finally, the truth about =delete; The function exists but is disabled. Unfortunate naming.