Follow Us
Categories
Archives
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- February 2022
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- January 2021
- November 2020
- October 2020
- August 2020
- April 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- October 2019
- September 2019
- July 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- January 2019
- December 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- August 2018
- July 2018
- April 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- April 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- November 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- November 2012
- October 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
Tag Archives: Modern C++
Using final in C++ to improve performance
Director at Feabhas Limited
Co-Founder and Director of Feabhas since 1995.
Niall has been designing and programming embedded systems for over 30 years. He has worked in different sectors, including aerospace, telecomms, government and banking.
His current interest lie in IoT Security and Agile for Embedded Systems.
Niall has been designing and programming embedded systems for over 30 years. He has worked in different sectors, including aerospace, telecomms, government and banking.
His current interest lie in IoT Security and Agile for Embedded Systems.
Latest posts by Niall Cooling (see all)
- Disassembling a Cortex-M raw binary file with Ghidra - December 20, 2022
- Using final in C++ to improve performance - November 14, 2022
- Understanding Arm Cortex-M Intel-Hex (ihex) files - October 12, 2022
Dynamic polymorphism (virtual functions) is central to Object-Oriented Programming (OOP). Used well, it provides hooks into an existing codebase where new functionality and behaviour can (relatively) easily be integrated into a proven, tested codebase.
Subtype inheritance can bring significant benefits, including easier integration, reduced regression test time and improved maintenance.
However, using virtual functions in C++ brings a runtime performance overhead. This overhead may appear inconsequential for individual calls, but in a non-trivial real-time embedded application, these overheads may build up and […]
Posted in C/C++ Programming, Design Issues
Tagged C++, design patterns, final, interface, Modern C++, Polymorphism
12 Comments
TDD with Compiler Explorer
Director at Feabhas Limited
Co-Founder and Director of Feabhas since 1995.
Niall has been designing and programming embedded systems for over 30 years. He has worked in different sectors, including aerospace, telecomms, government and banking.
His current interest lie in IoT Security and Agile for Embedded Systems.
Niall has been designing and programming embedded systems for over 30 years. He has worked in different sectors, including aerospace, telecomms, government and banking.
His current interest lie in IoT Security and Agile for Embedded Systems.
Latest posts by Niall Cooling (see all)
- Disassembling a Cortex-M raw binary file with Ghidra - December 20, 2022
- Using final in C++ to improve performance - November 14, 2022
- Understanding Arm Cortex-M Intel-Hex (ihex) files - October 12, 2022
Compiler Explorer (CE) has been around for several years now. When it first appeared on the scene, it immediately became an invaluable tool. Its ability to show generated assembler from given source code across many different compilers and ISAs (Instruction Set Architectures) is “mind-blowing”. We use it extensively when teaching as it allows you to clarify the effect your code can have on both performance and memory usage.
However, rather than limiting itself to only showing generated assembler, recent developments include the […]
Posted in Agile, C/C++ Programming, Testing
Tagged C++, C++11, Catch2, Compiler Explorer, doctest, GoogleTest, Modern C++, Testing
Leave a comment
Contract killing (in Modern C++)
Technical Consultant at Feabhas Ltd
Glennan is an embedded systems and software engineer with over 20 years experience, mostly in high-integrity systems for the defence and aerospace industry.
He specialises in C++, UML, software modelling, Systems Engineering and process development.
He specialises in C++, UML, software modelling, Systems Engineering and process development.
Latest posts by Glennan Carnie (see all)
- Practice makes perfect, part 3 – Idiomatic kata - February 27, 2020
- Practice makes perfect, part 2– foundation kata - February 13, 2020
- Practice makes perfect, part 1 – Code kata - January 30, 2020
If you work in high-integrity or safety-critical software then you have a duty-of-care to:
Ensure your code does what it should
Ensure your code doesn’t do what it’s not supposed to.
Moreover, you’re typically required to both demonstrate and document how you’ve achieved this duty-of-care. Typical mechanisms for demonstrating compliance include unit testing and static analysis; documentation usually includes function specifications and test results. The amount of testing, static analysis and documentation you (have to) do depends on the integrity level of your […]
Posted in C/C++ Programming
Tagged assert, attributes, C++11, C++14, C++17, C++20, C++2a, Contracts, deprecated, ensures, expects, maybe_unused, Modern C++, nodiscard, noreturn
3 Comments
Brace initialization of user-defined types
Technical Consultant at Feabhas Ltd
Glennan is an embedded systems and software engineer with over 20 years experience, mostly in high-integrity systems for the defence and aerospace industry.
He specialises in C++, UML, software modelling, Systems Engineering and process development.
He specialises in C++, UML, software modelling, Systems Engineering and process development.
Latest posts by Glennan Carnie (see all)
- Practice makes perfect, part 3 – Idiomatic kata - February 27, 2020
- Practice makes perfect, part 2– foundation kata - February 13, 2020
- Practice makes perfect, part 1 – Code kata - January 30, 2020
Uniform initialization syntax is one of my favourite features of Modern C++. I think it’s important, in good quality code, to clearly distinguish between initialization and assignment.
When it comes to user-defined types – structures and classes – brace initialization can throw up a few unexpected issues, and some counter-intuitive results (and errors!).
In this article, I want to have a look at some of the issues with brace initialization of user-defined types – specifically, brace elision and initializer_lists.
Read on for more…
Like (4)
Posted in C/C++ Programming, General
Tagged brace elision, brace initializer syntax, C++11, C++14, C++17, initialization, Modern C++, std::initializer_list
1 Comment
Thanks for the memory (allocator)
Technical Consultant at Feabhas Ltd
Glennan is an embedded systems and software engineer with over 20 years experience, mostly in high-integrity systems for the defence and aerospace industry.
He specialises in C++, UML, software modelling, Systems Engineering and process development.
He specialises in C++, UML, software modelling, Systems Engineering and process development.
Latest posts by Glennan Carnie (see all)
- Practice makes perfect, part 3 – Idiomatic kata - February 27, 2020
- Practice makes perfect, part 2– foundation kata - February 13, 2020
- Practice makes perfect, part 1 – Code kata - January 30, 2020
One of the design goals of Modern C++ is to find new ways – better, more effective – of doing things we could already do in C++. Some might argue this is one of the more frustrating aspects of Modern C++ – if it works, don’t fix it (alternatively: why use lightbulbs when we have perfectly good candles?!)
This time we’ll look at a new aspect of Modern C++: the Allocator model for dynamic containers. This is currently experimental, but has […]
A brief introduction to Concepts – Part 2
Technical Consultant at Feabhas Ltd
Glennan is an embedded systems and software engineer with over 20 years experience, mostly in high-integrity systems for the defence and aerospace industry.
He specialises in C++, UML, software modelling, Systems Engineering and process development.
He specialises in C++, UML, software modelling, Systems Engineering and process development.
Latest posts by Glennan Carnie (see all)
- Practice makes perfect, part 3 – Idiomatic kata - February 27, 2020
- Practice makes perfect, part 2– foundation kata - February 13, 2020
- Practice makes perfect, part 1 – Code kata - January 30, 2020
In part 1 of this article we looked at adding requirements to parameters in template code to improve the diagnostic ability of the compiler. (I’d recommend reading this article first, if you haven’t already)
Previously, we looked at a simple example of adding a small number of requirements on a template parameter to introduce the syntax and semantics. In reality, the constraints imposed on a template parameter could consist of any combination of
Type traits
Required type aliases
Required member attributes
Required member functions
Explicitly listing […]
Posted in C/C++ Programming
Tagged C++, C++20, C++2a, concepts, generic programming, Modern C++, requires, Templates
4 Comments
A brief introduction to Concepts – Part 1
Technical Consultant at Feabhas Ltd
Glennan is an embedded systems and software engineer with over 20 years experience, mostly in high-integrity systems for the defence and aerospace industry.
He specialises in C++, UML, software modelling, Systems Engineering and process development.
He specialises in C++, UML, software modelling, Systems Engineering and process development.
Latest posts by Glennan Carnie (see all)
- Practice makes perfect, part 3 – Idiomatic kata - February 27, 2020
- Practice makes perfect, part 2– foundation kata - February 13, 2020
- Practice makes perfect, part 1 – Code kata - January 30, 2020
Templates are an extremely powerful – and terrifying – element of C++ programs. I say “terrifying” – not because templates are particularly hard to use (normally), or even particularly complex to write (normally) – but because when things go wrong the compiler’s output is a tsunami of techno-word-salad that can overwhelm even the experienced programmer.
The problem with generic code is that it isn’t completely generic. That is, generic code cannot be expected to work on every possible type we could […]
Posted in C/C++ Programming
Tagged C++, C++20, C++2a, concepts, generic programming, Modern C++, requires, Templates
Leave a comment
“May Not Meet Developer Expectations” #77
Technical Consultant at Feabhas Ltd
Glennan is an embedded systems and software engineer with over 20 years experience, mostly in high-integrity systems for the defence and aerospace industry.
He specialises in C++, UML, software modelling, Systems Engineering and process development.
He specialises in C++, UML, software modelling, Systems Engineering and process development.
Latest posts by Glennan Carnie (see all)
- Practice makes perfect, part 3 – Idiomatic kata - February 27, 2020
- Practice makes perfect, part 2– foundation kata - February 13, 2020
- Practice makes perfect, part 1 – Code kata - January 30, 2020
Question: Does the following compile?
int func()
{
int (func);
return
Posted in C/C++ Programming
Tagged C++11, C++14, debugging, declaration, Modern C++, multi-threading
3 Comments
Exceptional fun!
Technical Consultant at Feabhas Ltd
Glennan is an embedded systems and software engineer with over 20 years experience, mostly in high-integrity systems for the defence and aerospace industry.
He specialises in C++, UML, software modelling, Systems Engineering and process development.
He specialises in C++, UML, software modelling, Systems Engineering and process development.
Latest posts by Glennan Carnie (see all)
- Practice makes perfect, part 3 – Idiomatic kata - February 27, 2020
- Practice makes perfect, part 2– foundation kata - February 13, 2020
- Practice makes perfect, part 1 – Code kata - January 30, 2020
In this article I want to look at some applications for one of C++’s more obscure mechanisms, the function
Posted in C/C++ Programming
Tagged C++03, C++11, C++14, exceptions, function try-block, goto, Modern C++
3 Comments
Making things do stuff – Part 9
Technical Consultant at Feabhas Ltd
Glennan is an embedded systems and software engineer with over 20 years experience, mostly in high-integrity systems for the defence and aerospace industry.
He specialises in C++, UML, software modelling, Systems Engineering and process development.
He specialises in C++, UML, software modelling, Systems Engineering and process development.
Latest posts by Glennan Carnie (see all)
- Practice makes perfect, part 3 – Idiomatic kata - February 27, 2020
- Practice makes perfect, part 2– foundation kata - February 13, 2020
- Practice makes perfect, part 1 – Code kata - January 30, 2020
As a final instalment in this series on hardware manipulation I thought I’d revisit read-only and write-only register types.
Using tag dispatch is not the only way to solve the read- or write-only Register problem. For completeness let’s explore two other alternatives – SFINAE and constexpr if.
For these examples I’m going to use a simplified version of our Register class. I’m ignoring the bit proxy class and using a reduced API. Once understood, the techniques below can be applied to these […]
Posted in C/C++ Programming, Design Issues
Tagged C++, C++0x, C++11, C++1y, constexpr-if, GPIO, hardware manipulation, Modern C++, SFINAE, tag dispatch, Templates
1 Comment