C++ For Embedded Developers (2023-03-20 - 2023-03-23)

• Start: Monday 9:00

• 3 days

• Project on Github: https://github.com/jfasch/2023-03-20

Goal

Give an idea how an experienced C programmer can benefit from the C++ toolcase. The following aspects are covered, accompanied with many exercises.

• C++ is an object oriented language. That term alone has many facets, and a solid understanding of each is given. Constructors, destructors, automatic pointer/base-class conversion, late binding (“abstract”?), and all that.

• C++ also brings a rich toolset in form of its standard library. After a short conceptual introduction, containers and algorithms are something that is immediately useful for non-OO programmers.

• C++ does not stop there; starting from its 2011 definition, the language has undergone a major revolution. An overview is given.

Work Environment

Preferred: Ubuntu under Windows (WSL)

I suggest you use the Windows Subsystem For Linux (WSL2) (Microsoft documentation here). This sets up a virtualized Ubuntu inside Windows, together with all interoperability wazoo.

When installed, open a Ubuntu terminal, and install the software that is required for this training.

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install git build-essential cmake libgtest-dev libgmock-dev

Unsupported Environments

It is also possible to setup a Linux-like environment on native Windows, using the following emulation layers:

• Cygwin

• MinGW (known to have problems when it comes to threading)

You may use these, but be warned that there might not exist enough trainer-side knowledge to help you out f anything goes wrong.

Skeleton Project Setup

Follow the instructions in the course project README to setup the initial version of the course project.

Day 1

Classes, Objects, Methods

• From Data Encapsulation

  • Object Oriented Programming In Good Ol’ C

  • Classes and Objects

  • Custom Constructor

  • Default Constructor

  • Copy Constructor, Assignment Operator

  • More Constructors, Destructors

  • Object Copy (And Resource Management): There Be Dragons

• From Functions and Methods

  • Overloading

  • Methods

  • const

  • this

  • References

  • static Methods

  • Operator Overloading

Exercises

• OO Basics, Interfaces (Shapes)

Miscellaneous

• One Definition Rule (ODR), and static inline class members: static Member Variables

• constexpr explored. How is it used to populate the rodata section and save RAM?

  • constexpr

  • Sample code: rodata.cpp

• Global objects from different compilation units are initialized in unspecified order. See here.

Day 2

Heavy Weight OO 💪

• From Inheritance And Object Oriented Design

  • Inheritance Basics

  • Inheritance: private, protected (Implementation Inheritance)

  • Virtual Methods

  • Polymorphic Usage Of Objects

  • Destructors And Inheritance

  • Virtual Destructors

  • C++ “Interfaces”

Resource Management Pitfalls

• Exploring object copy when resources have to be explicitly managed: Object Copy (And Resource Management): There Be Dragons

Day 3

R-Value References/Moving, And Managed Pointers

• Move Semantics, Rvalue References

• Smart Pointers (std::unique_ptr, std::shared_ptr)

A Little Concurrency

• Only if there is time (and fun): have a look at Multithreading

Exercise

Based upon an object oriented encapsulation for OS primitives (timers and GPIOs, mainly),

• Sensors

  • A sensor abstract base class - an interface

  • A number of concrete sensor implementations

  • A configured set of those, measuring live data

  • Live data is posted via another interface

• Display(s)

  • Another interface in the system

  • Display measurement values

  • Concrete implementation: a software PWM using a timer and a GPIO (as opposed to hardware PWM

Untold So Far

C++ Standard Library

• Managed Pointers

• Pointer Arithmetic Recap: Pointers and Arrays

• Standard Template Library: Basics

• Basic Algorithms

  • for_each<>

  • copy<>

  • reverse<>: Reversing In-Place

  • reverse_copy<>: Copying and Reversing

  • find<>: Sequential Search, by Equality

  • find_if<>: Sequential Search, Customizable

• Sorted Array Algorithms

  • sort<>

  • binary_search<>: On Sorted Sequence

  • lower_bound<>: On Sorted Sequence

• Sequential Containers

  • Sequential Containers

  • vector<>

  • list<>

• Associative Containers

  • Associative Containers

  • std::map

  • multimap<>

Miscellaneous Topics

• Optimization

  • Optimization

  • Optimizations: Compute Bound Code

  • Optimizations: Memory Optimizations