1. Replacing rand
One of the big gains in C++11 has to be replacing the use of rand() with all the options available in the random header. Replacing rand() in many cases should be straight forward.
Stephan T. Lavavej probably made this point the strongest with his presentation rand() Considered Harmful. The examples show a uniform integer distribution from [0,10] using rand():
#include <cstdlib>
#include <iostream>
#include <ctime>
int main()
{
srand(time(0)) ;
for (int n = 0; n < 10; ++n)
{
std::cout << (rand() / (RAND_MAX / (10 + 1) + 1)) << ", " ;
}
std::cout << std::endl ;
}
and using std::uniform_int_distrubution:
#include <iostream>
#include <random>
int main()
{
std::random_device rd;
std::mt19937 e2(rd());
std::uniform_int_distribution<> dist(0, 10);
for (int n = 0; n < 10; ++n) {
std::cout << dist(e2) << ", " ;
}
std::cout << std::endl ;
}
Along with this should be moving from std::random_shuffle to std::shuffle which comes out of the effort to Deprecate rand and Friends. This was recently covered in the SO question Why are std::shuffle methods being deprecated in C++14?.
Note that the distributions are not guaranteed to be consistent across platforms.
2. Using std::to_string instead of std::ostringstream or sprintf
C++11 provides std::to_string which can be used to convert numerics to std::string it would produce the content as the equivalent std::sprintf. Most likely this would be used in place of either std::ostringstream or snprintf. This is more of a convenience, there is probably not much of performance difference and we can see from the Fast integer to string conversion in C++ article there are probably much faster alternatives available if performance is the main concern:
#include <iostream>
#include <sstream>
#include <string>
int main()
{
std::ostringstream mystream;
mystream << 100 ;
std::string s = mystream.str();
std::cout << s << std::endl ;
char buff[12] = {0};
sprintf(buff, "%d", 100);
std::string s2( buff ) ;
std::cout << s2 << std::endl ;
std::cout << std::to_string( 100 ) << std::endl ;
}
3. Using constexpr in place of template meta-programming
If you are dealing with literals there may be cases where using constexpr functions over template meta-programming may produce code that is more clear and possibly compiles faster. The article Want speed? Use constexpr meta-programming! provides an example of prime number determination using template meta-programming:
struct false_type
{
typedef false_type type;
enum { value = 0 };
};
struct true_type
{
typedef true_type type;
enum { value = 1 };
};
template<bool condition, class T, class U>
struct if_
{
typedef U type;
};
template <class T, class U>
struct if_<true, T, U>
{
typedef T type;
};
template<size_t N, size_t c>
struct is_prime_impl
{
typedef typename if_<(c*c > N),
true_type,
typename if_<(N % c == 0),
false_type,
is_prime_impl<N, c+1> >::type >::type type;
enum { value = type::value };
};
template<size_t N>
struct is_prime
{
enum { value = is_prime_impl<N, 2>::type::value };
};
template <>
struct is_prime<0>
{
enum { value = 0 };
};
template <>
struct is_prime<1>
{
enum { value = 0 };
};
and using constexpr functions:
constexpr bool is_prime_recursive(size_t number, size_t c)
{
return (c*c > number) ? true :
(number % c == 0) ? false :
is_prime_recursive(number, c+1);
}
constexpr bool is_prime_func(size_t number)
{
return (number <= 1) ? false : is_prime_recursive(number, 2);
}
The constexpr version is much shorter, easier to understand and apparently performs much better than the template meta-programming implementation.
4. Using class member initialization to provide default values
As was recently covered in Has the new C++11 member initialization feature at declaration made initialization lists obsolete? class member initialization can be used to provide default values and can simplify cases where a class has multiple constructors.
Bjarne Stroustrup provides a good example in the C++11 FAQ, he says:
This saves a bit of typing, but the real benefits come in classes with multiple constructors. Often, all constructors use a common initializer for a member:
and provides an example of members which have a common initializer:
class A {
public:
A(): a(7), b(5), hash_algorithm("MD5"), s("Constructor run") {}
A(int a_val) : a(a_val), b(5), hash_algorithm("MD5"), s("Constructor run") {}
A(D d) : a(7), b(g(d)), hash_algorithm("MD5"), s("Constructor run") {}
int a, b;
private:
HashingFunction hash_algorithm; // Cryptographic hash to be applied to all A instances
std::string s; // String indicating state in object lifecycle
};
and says:
The fact that hash_algorithm and s each has a single default is lost in the mess of code and could easily become a problem during maintenance. Instead, we can factor out the initialization of the data members:
class A {
public:
A(): a(7), b(5) {}
A(int a_val) : a(a_val), b(5) {}
A(D d) : a(7), b(g(d)) {}
int a, b;
private:
HashingFunction hash_algorithm{"MD5"}; // Cryptographic hash to be applied to all A instances
std::string s{"Constructor run"}; // String indicating state in object lifecycle
};
Note, that in C++11 a class using in class member initializers is no longer an aggregate although this restriction is removed in C++14.
5. Use fixed width integer types from cstdint instead of hand rolled typedefs
Since the C++11 standard uses C99 as a normative reference we get fixed width integer types, as well. For example:
int8_t
int16_t
int32_t
int64_t
intptr_t
Although several of them an optional, for the exact width integer types the following from C99 section 7.18.1.1 applies:
These types are optional. However, if an implementation provides integer types with widths of 8,
16, 32, or 64 bits, no padding bits, and (for the signed types) that
have a two’s complement representation, it shall define the
corresponding typedef names.
