When working with STL containers we generally use iterators to access, manipulate and enumerate the contents. This almost becomes second nature and it’s very easy to go on auto-pilot and end up coding an innocuous looking bit of code that can contain a rather nasty surprise. This little quiz shows just one example of how such a surprise might come back to bite you.
Category: Coding
Stuff to do with programming
How to add properties to standard C++ classes
One feature missing from standard C++ that you will find in many other Object Oriented Programming languages is something called a Property. These are like data members except they can have preconditions imposed on them prior to getting or setting their value.
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Definition or a declaration?
The C++ language is a context sensitive language, which means a compiler cannot always decide the semantics of a line of code in isolation. Sometimes, though, it is impossible for the compiler to make up it’s mind so it just guesses. Yup, that’s right, it guesses. To find out more try this little quiz.
Order of initialization
In general, it’s pretty obvious what order the compiler will initialize variables: it’s the order in which they appear in the translation unit. What happens, though, when you have a global variable in one translation unit depending on the the initialization of a global variable in another translation unit? This little quiz explores just that.
When simple arithmetic isn’t so simple!
What could be as simple as incrementing a variable by one? Ignoring overflow, what else could possibly go wrong? As it turns out, quite a lot as this little quiz demonstrates.
The dangers of casting pointers
There are various dangers when casting pointers to different types but as a general rule, casting to a void pointer and back to the original pointer is considered safe. Unfortunately, this is not always the case as this little quiz demonstrates.
String literals and pointers
Do you know how to access c-style literal strings? Try this two-part quiz and see if you are able to unravel the different semantics of character pointers and arrays.
Exceptions to the rule
The C++ Standard is a pretty large and complex document; however, it is the bible as far as writing C++ code is concerned. The standard is full of exceptions that prove the rule, and this quiz demonstrates just one trivial example.
Comparing structs
This little quiz explores the pitfalls of trying to compare structs. Do you know the right way to check if two structs are the same?
Copying to stdout using STL
The STL (Standard Template Library) is a collection of generic algorithms and data structures. This little quiz demonstrates one of the many useful things one can achieve with just a few lines of code when utilizing the power of this library.
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