What C++ pitfalls should I avoid? [closed]

Answer 1

Intention is (x == 10):

if (x = 10) {
    //Do something
}

I thought I would never make this mistake myself, but I actually did it recently.

Answer 2

#include <boost/shared_ptr.hpp>
class A {
public:
  void nuke() {
     boost::shared_ptr<A> (this);
  }
};

int main(int argc, char** argv) {
  A a;
  a.nuke();
  return(0);
}

Answer 3

Brian has a great list: I'd add "Always mark single argument constructors explicit (except in those rare cases you want automatic casting)."

Answer 4

PRQA have an excellent and free C++ coding standard based on books from Scott Meyers, Bjarne Stroustrop and Herb Sutter. It brings all this information together in one document.

Answer 5

Not really a specific tip, but a general guideline: check your sources. C++ is an old language, and it has changed a lot over the years. Best practices have changed with it, but unfortunately there's still a lot of old information out there. There have been some very good book recommendations on here - I can second buying every one of Scott Meyers C++ books. Become familiar with Boost and with the coding styles used in Boost - the people involved with that project are on the cutting edge of C++ design.

Do not reinvent the wheel. Become familiar with the STL and Boost, and use their facilities whenever possible rolling your own. In particular, use STL strings and collections unless you have a very, very good reason not to. Get to know auto_ptr and the Boost smart pointers library very well, understand under which circumstances each type of smart pointer is intended to be used, and then use smart pointers everywhere you might otherwise have used raw pointers. Your code will be just as efficient and a lot less prone to memory leaks.

Use static_cast, dynamic_cast, const_cast, and reinterpret_cast instead of C-style casts. Unlike C-style casts they will let you know if you are really asking for a different type of cast than you think you are asking for. And they stand out viisually, alerting the reader that a cast is taking place.

Answer 6

The most important pitfalls for beginning developers is to avoid confusion between C and C++. C++ should never be treated as a mere better C or C with classes because this prunes its power and can make it even dangerous (especially when using memory as in C).