API Design for C++
- 2nd Edition - May 23, 2024
- Imprint: Morgan Kaufmann
- Author: Martin Reddy
- Language: English
- Paperback ISBN:9 7 8 - 0 - 4 4 3 - 2 2 2 1 9 - 1
- eBook ISBN:9 7 8 - 0 - 4 4 3 - 2 2 2 2 0 - 7
API Design for C++, Second Edition provides a comprehensive discussion of Application Programming Interface (API) development, from initial design through implementation, testing,… Read more
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Request a sales quoteAPI Design for C++, Second Edition provides a comprehensive discussion of Application Programming Interface (API) development, from initial design through implementation, testing, documentation, release, versioning, maintenance, and deprecation. It is the only book that teaches the strategies of C++ API development, including interface design, versioning, scripting, and plug-in extensibility. Drawing from the author's experience on large scale, collaborative software projects, the text offers practical techniques of API design that produce robust code for the long-term. It presents patterns and practices that provide real value to individual developers as well as organizations.
The Second Edition includes all new material fully updated for the latest versions of C++, including a new chapter on concurrency and multithreading, as well as a new chapter discussing how Objective C++ and C++ code can co-exist and how a C++ API can be accessed from Swift programs. In addition, it explores often overlooked issues, both technical and non-technical, contributing to successful design decisions that produce high quality, robust, and long-lived APIs. It focuses on various API styles and patterns that will allow you to produce elegant and durable libraries. A discussion on testing strategies concentrates on automated API testing techniques rather than attempting to include end-user application testing techniques such as GUI testing, system testing, or manual testing.
- Teaches the strategies of C++ API development, including design, versioning, documentation, testing, scripting, and extensibility
- Includes extensive code examples that illustrate each concept, with fully functional examples and working source code for experimentation available online
- Covers various API styles and patterns, with a focus on practical and efficient designs for large-scale, long-term projects
- Includes updated URLs and ensures all code examples continue to work with modern compilers and supporting tools
Computer Science researchers, software engineers, programmers, and software researchers in academia and industry, including software engineers developing C++ code to be used by other developers, whether via APIs, libraries, device drivers, or other reusable components, Graduate students and senior undergraduate students in Computer Science and software engineering.
- Cover image
- Title page
- Table of Contents
- Copyright
- Author biography
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1. Introduction
- What are APIs?
- What's different about API design?
- Why should you use APIs?
- When should you avoid APIs?
- API examples
- Libraries, frameworks, and software development kits
- File formats and network protocols
- About this book
- 2. Qualities
- Model the problem domain
- Hide implementation details
- Minimally complete
- Easy to use
- Loosely coupled
- Stable, documented, and tested
- 3. Patterns
- Pimpl idiom
- Singleton
- Factory Methods
- API wrapping patterns
- Observer pattern
- 4. Design
- A case for good design
- Gathering functional requirements
- Creating use cases
- Elements of API design
- Architecture design
- Class design
- Function design
- 5. Styles
- Flat C APIs
- Object-oriented C++ APIs
- Template-based APIs
- Functional APIs
- Data-driven APIs
- 6. C++ usage
- Namespaces
- Constructors and assignment
- Const correctness
- Templates
- Operator overloading
- Function parameters
- Avoid #define for constants
- Avoid using friends
- Exporting symbols
- Coding conventions
- 7. C++ revisions
- Which C++ revision to use
- C++11 API features
- C++14 API features
- C++17 API features
- C++20 API features
- C++23 API features
- 8. Performance
- Pass input arguments by const reference
- Minimize #include dependencies
- Declaring constants
- Initialization lists
- Memory optimization
- Don't inline functions until you need to
- Copy on write
- Iterating over elements
- Performance analysis
- 9. Concurrency
- Multithreading with C++
- Terminology
- Accessing shared data
- Concurrent API design
- 10. Versioning
- Version numbers
- Software branching strategies
- Life cycle of an API
- Levels of compatibility
- How to maintain backward compatibility
- API reviews
- 11. Documentation
- Reasons to write documentation
- Types of documentation
- Documentation usability
- Using Doxygen
- 12. Testing
- Reasons to write tests
- Types of API testing
- Writing good tests
- Writing testable code
- Automated testing tools
- 13. Objective-C and Swift
- Interface design in C++ and Objective-C
- Data hiding in Objective-C
- Objective-C behind a C++ API
- C++ behind an Objective-C API
- C++ behind a Swift API
- 14. Scripting
- Adding script bindings
- Script binding technologies
- Adding Python bindings with Boost Python
- Adding Ruby bindings with SWIG
- 15. Extensibility
- Extending via plugins
- Extending via inheritance
- Extending via templates
- Appendix A: Libraries
- References
- Index
- Edition: 2
- Published: May 23, 2024
- Imprint: Morgan Kaufmann
- No. of pages: 648
- Language: English
- Paperback ISBN: 9780443222191
- eBook ISBN: 9780443222207
MR
Martin Reddy
Dr. Martin Reddy holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science and has over 30 years of experience in the software industry. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of the AAIA, and a Distinguished Member of the ACM. He has published 10 patents, over 40 professional articles, and 2 books. Martin was co-founder and CTO of the AI startup, PullString, where he oversaw the development of the company's technology until it was acquired by Apple in 2019. While at Apple, Martin was a software architect responsible for the architecture and APIs of major components of the Siri virtual assistant. Before that, Dr. Reddy worked for 6 years at Pixar Animation Studios where he was a lead engineer for the studio's in-house animation system. He worked on several Academy Award Winning and Nominated films, such as "Finding Nemo", "The Incredibles", "Cars", "Ratatouille", and "Wall-E". He was also the hair model for Mr Incredible. Martin began his career at SRI International where he worked on a distributed 3D terrain visualization system and co-authored the geospatial functionality in the VRML and X3D ISO standards. Martin was awarded Alumnus of the Year by his alma mater, Strathclyde University.
Affiliations and expertise
Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of the AAIA, and a Distinguished Member of the ACM.Read API Design for C++ on ScienceDirect