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 25

Raw Arrays, and Why vector Exists

No size, no bounds checking, and the moment an array stops being one.

Part 2

This chapter needs a key

Chapter 24 showed you text without std::string. This is numbers without std::vector, which is where you find out what push_back and .size() were actually protecting you from.

You'll build: Write past the end and find out. Clobber a neighbour, lose an array's size in a function call, and read what survives.

I have a key →Part 2 goes on sale soon

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