Thinking in C++

Coding Style
Resources

Coding Style

Eckel justifies the decisions about the coding styles in the text¹:

All the decisions about coding style in this book have been deliberately considered and made, sometimes over a period of years.

General

The coding style as described by Eckel is one that he came to after years of practice, and originates from Bjarne Stroustrup's style, the Author of C++¹:

I use a particular coding style for the examples in this book. It was developed over a number of years, and was partially inspired by Bjarne Stroustrup's style in his original The C++ Programming Language.

Eckel goes on to declare that it's more important to keep a consistent style, than to try to determine which is superior¹:

Because C++ is a free-form programming language, you can continue to use whatever style you're comfortable with. That said, I will note that it is important to have a consistent formatting style within a project.

File names

Eckel describes the history of the naming conventions for C/C++ files¹:

In C, it has been traditional to name header files (containing declarations) with an extension of .h and implementation files (that cause storage to be allocated and code to be generated) with an extension of .c.

Depending on the type of operating system, some files had different extensions as well¹:

DOS C++ vendors used extensions of hxx and cxx for header files and implementation files, respectively, or hpp and cpp. Later, someone figured out that the only reason you needed a different extension for a file was so the compiler could determine whether to compile it as a C or C++ file

Name	Extension	Description
Header	.h	Header files for C/C++
Header	.hxx	Header file for C++ on DOS
Implementation	.c	Implementation file for C
Implementation	.cpp	Implementaiton file for C++

Begin and end comment tags

Most of the code examples in the text book have comment tags at the beginning and end, which is part of a system used by Eckel to verify all of the code examples¹:

A very important issue with this book is that all code that you see in the book must be verified to be correct (with at least one compiler).

Eckel further elaborates how each example has a custom makefile and some program information included in the tags¹:

Because ExtractCode.cpp also creates a makefile for each subdirectory, information about how a program is made and the command-line used to test it is also incorporated into the listings.

Parentheses, braces, and indentation

The section begins with, what is in my opinion, an accurate statement by Eckel, although not without irony¹:

Of course, everyone thinks their own style is the most rational. However, the style used here has a simple logic behind it, which will be presented here mixed in with ideas on why some of the other styles developed.

On addressing indentation¹:

Everyone seems to agree that code inside braces should be indented.

Eckel addresses braces in his coding style¹:

… the opening brace should always go on the same line as the "precursor" (by which I mean "whatever the body is about: a class, function, object definition, if statement, etc."). This is a single, consistent rule I apply to all of the code I write, and it makes formatting much simpler.

Identifier names

Eckel explains the naming conventions of identifiers¹:

Those familiar with Java will notice that I have switched to using the standard Java style for all identifier names. However, I cannot be completely consistent here because identifiers in the Standard C and C++ libraries do not follow this style

Type	Style
Class	Pascal Case
Function / Variable	Camel Case
Const / Definition	Snake Case

class FrenchVanilla : public IceCream { }

const MAX_SCOOPS = 3;

FrenchVanilla myIceCreamCone(MAX_SCOOPS);

Order of header inclusion

Eckel broadly defines the order of inclusion¹:

Headers are included in order from "the most specific to the most general." That is, any header files in the local directory are included first, then any of my own "tool" headers, such as require.h, then any third-party library headers, then the Standard C++ Library headers, and finally the C library headers.

#include <myheader.h>  // Local directory headers.
#include <mytools>     // Personal tool headers.
#include <thirdparty>  // Third party library headers.
#include <bits/stdc++> // C++ library headers.
#include <iostream>    // C library headerts

Resources

Eckel, Bruce. Thinking in C++. 2nd ed, Prentice Hall, 2000, https://online.vitalsource.com/books/9781269392440.

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