Contents

Part 0: Getting a compiler to obey

  1. 0Installing a Compiler Without Losing Your Mind

Part 1: Writing programs

  1. 1Hello, World, and What Actually Happened
  2. 2Your First Error Message
  3. 3Variables, and the Types They Insist On
  4. 4Strings: Text That Doesn't Fight Back
  5. 5Input: Letting the Reader Talk Back
  6. 6Arithmetic, and Where It Betrays You
  7. 7Deciding Things: if, else, and Booleans
  8. 8Loops: Doing It Again Until It's Done
  9. 9Functions: Giving Work a Name
  10. 10std::vector: A List That Grows
  11. 11Printing, Poking, and Proving It Works
  12. 12Copies, References, and Not Wasting Work
  13. 13Sorting and Searching Without Writing Either
  14. 14struct: Things That Belong Together
  15. 15Files: Making Your Program Remember
  16. 16Maps: Looking Things Up by Name
  17. 17Validation: Assuming the Worst
  18. 18Classes: Types You Design Yourself
  19. 19Constructors, and Types That Can't Be Broken
  20. 20Splitting a Program Across Files
  21. 21Interlude: Build Something Real

Part 2: Lifting the floor

  1. 22What a Variable Really Is
  2. 23Pointers, Finally
  3. 24What std::string Was Hiding
  4. 25Raw Arrays, and Why vector Exists
  5. 26The Heap, new, delete, and What Goes Wrong
  6. 27Ownership, Destructors Doing the Work
  7. 28Templates, One Function, Any Type
  8. 29Iterators, and What range-for Becomes
  9. 30Borrowing Without Owning
  10. 31Undefined Behaviour, When C++ Stops Promising
  11. 32Where to Go Next
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Chapter 30

Borrowing Without Owning

References, pointers, string_view, and dangling.

Part 2

This chapter needs a key

References, pointers and string_view all let you use something without owning it, and all three break the same way. This chapter is about the one question that decides whether your code is correct, which is how long the thing you borrowed lives.

You'll build: Four ways to dangle. Build every borrowing bug in this chapter and find out which ones the compiler catches.

I have a key →Part 2 goes on sale soon

Part 1, chapters 0 to 21, is free and always will be.