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 23

Pointers, Finally

The star and the ampersand, and why they were worth waiting for.

Part 2

This chapter needs a key

Chapter 22 let you print an address but gave you nowhere to keep one. A pointer is a variable that holds an address, and almost everything difficult about C++ starts here.

You'll build: Break a pointer on purpose. Point at a dead function's memory, dereference nothing, and read the crashes.

I have a key →Part 2 goes on sale soon

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