Help with some string conversion

Quote:

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Honestly, I have not seen any documentation or tutorial
available online (available free) that is as useful as the
documentation of the C language and of the rest of the C++
language.

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Normally I agree with what Sam posts, but in this case I
disagree that most programmers can effectively learn
"the rest of the C++ language" from on-line (available free)
documentation. Certainly not from MSDN (in my opinion).
MSDN gives the syntax, but has very little info on C++ design.
(I admit, that the flaw might be with me, and not MSDN - I'm
certainly not a programming expert and using MSDN to learn
C++ might just be beyond my capabilities. Maybe real computer
programmers can.)

Look at the following code posted by a "stl-basher" in the
Visual C++ forum. He claimed that it was a great design.
However, the design is flawed - and flawed in a very basic way.
But I doubt that looking at MSDN will show why. (I spent about
30 minutes searching MSDN and could not find anything ...
maybe its there and I missed it.) And public inheritance is
basic to the C++ language.

Code:

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class CUpperCaseString : public CString
{
public:
    CUpperCaseString(LPCSTR szString)
        : CString(szString)
    {
        MakeUpper();
    }

    virtual ~CUpperCaseString()
    {
    }
};

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What is the difference between public and private inheritance,
and when/why would you ever use private inheritance? I
searched for that in MSDN and came up empty. Again, maybe its
there somewhere.

Pretty much look at any of the points in Meyers Effective C++
books. I have not found on-line documentation that covers the
majority of them in proper detail.

Personally, I don't even think the documenation for the MFC
classes is any good. I have never found any complexity
guarentees on performance for the various functions. About all I
can find is that "inserting into a CArray is slow" and
"inserting into a CMap is fast". I agree with both those
statements in GENERAL, but I can also show examples where
the statements are not true. And while performance is not an
issue in all programs, it is certainly an issue and many codes.


Some on-line sites that I find useful (both STL and C++ in general)

http://www.josuttis.com/libbook/idx.html
http://www.gotw.ca/gotw/
http://www.aristeia.com/publications_frames.html

and not leave out MSDN ...

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...tml/SAMPLE.asp
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/is...L/default.aspx

I think I pretty much agree with you, Philip. Please understand that you are coming from the opposite direction. I did not say that the MFC documentation and the rest of the MSDN is wonderful. I was just saying that they are better compared to ths STL documentation.

What is critical here is the definition of "effectively learn". What I am saying is that it is generally possible to learn enough to write a program using C and C++. That might not be true, but if not then that would support the important point of what I am trying to say; that is, that the STL documentation is not sufficient for using the STL. Good software design is a different matter, and the STL documentation is worse in that manner, not better.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Sam Hobbs
the important point of what I am trying to say; that is, that the STL documentation is not sufficient for using the STL.

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Fair enough, you must have an introduction other than just reading the SGI docs. This is done in varying degrees on some sites and in articles available online (e.g. std::vector by Gabriel). My point is that once you understand the concept of STL (iterators, containers, algorithms, templates), you don't need a book anymore. There are advanced techniques that are only in books, but for most of the how do I use this-type questions, the SGI docs are sufficient. But yes, it's not for the uniniatiated. I.e. if you want to learn the concepts of STL, it's a bad idea to start only from the docs. But if you have used vector, string and map, you just need the SGI docs to see what a deque and a multiset do and how to use them.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Yves M
There are advanced techniques that are only in books, but for most of the how do I use this-type questions, the SGI docs are sufficient.

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I have been quite frustrated trying to use the documentation for determining some very basic uses of STL.

Maybe. I've always found what I was looking for, except for the stuff about allocators and advanced techniques, like how to best combine several things into others.