C++ for Non C Programmers

This C++ course is designed for people with no prior knowledge of the C language. While it covers those aspects of C++, which are common to C, it concentrates on a modern, object-orientated approach to the language rather than covering C and then extending it to C++. Microsoft's tools are used on the course, however no specific development environment or target system is assumed.


Prerequisites
Knowledge of another language would be an advantage, although not essential.


Course Content
Getting Started
- Writing, building and running
a C++ program
- Language structure
- The Main Procedure
- Basic stream and console
Input/Output
- Declaring and initialising variables
- Fundamental data types
- Strings

Structured Programming
- Control Flow, Loops and
Conditions
- The for Loop
- do and while
- if and else
- The Conditional expression
- Functions and argument passing
- Argument passing by value and
reference
- Predeclarations and Prototypes
- Using Header Files
- The Switch statement
- Variable Scope - Local, Static,
Global
- Variable Lifetimes
- Using Namespaces
- Memory management
- Casting and Cast types

Classes & Objects
- What is Object Orientation?
- Defining Classes and creating
objects
- Classes vs. data structures
- Object Oriented design concepts

Using Objects
- Encapsulation and data Hiding
- Constructors and Destructors
- Default Constructors and
Initialisation
- Class Definition and
Implementation
- Inheritance and Polymorphism
- Overriding
- Constructing applications using
objects
- Class examples
- Practical Polymorphism
- Virtual Functions
- Abstract Base Classes
- Run time Type information and
dynamic_cast
- Constant and Static Members
- Using 'this'
- Calling the Base Class
Constructor explicitly
- Friends
- Multiple Inheritance and Virtual
- Base Classes
Dynamic Objects
- Pointers and the use of New
and Delete
- Arrays and Collections
- Safe use of Pointers
- Pointers and References

Operator Overloading
- Basics of Operator overloading
- Operator overloading rules
- Operator examples
- Mixing Types
- Binary, Unary and Postfix
Operators
- Friends and Alternatives
- Type Conversion Operators
- Operator = Assignment and
Construction
- The Copy constructor
- Practical examples

Templates
- How Templates work
- Function Templates
- Type safety
- Templates, Parameter Types
and Overloading
- Class Templates
- Using Constants
- Templates in the Standard
Library
- Designing and using Templates

Error & Exception Handling
- Exceptions in C++
- try, catch and throw
- Strategies for errors and
exceptions
- Deriving Exception Classes

Additional & Historic Features
- Structs, Unions and typedef
- More about Main
- Logical and Bitwise operators
- Conditional compilation and
the Pre-processor
- Compatibility with C
- More Streams
- Ancient Features