Hello again, as I write this it’s another blazing hot summer week for me, but we don’t let that get in the way of coding and teaching you on our LearnCPlusPlus.org web page. CPUs and GPUs have evolved year on year to feature a greater number of cores and transistors to give more computational power for today’s servers and computers. With the advent of multiple cores, it is common now for programs to make use of multiple simultaneous threads. Multi-threading is one of the great features of modern C++, allowing you to use the maximum number of cores and threads of your CPUs today. For example, the AMD EPYC 9654 with 96 cores 192 threads, or the Intel Xeon w9-3495X 56 cores 112 threads – unimaginable power for anyone looking for CPUs just a decade ago. That power means you can speed up your operations by 2 to 192 times with multi-core CPUs today or you can improve it by 2 or more parallel CPUs.
In modern C++, multi-thread operations are amazingly evolved since C++11, and still there are new improvements in the latest standards to enhance multi-thread operations further. The Concurrency Support Library is designed to solve problems that arise with multi-thread operations and this week we have some examples of multi-threading in C++.
This week, we explain what std::thread is and how can we use it with vectors and functors. In multi-threading, concurrency control is important and there is also mutex mutual exclusion and we explain it with very simple, easy to understand examples. We have two more important post picks about the features that come with C++11. The C++11 standard provides an alternative to std::move, which is std::move_if_noexcept and we have examples about it. Unions are rarely used but are another important data type alternative to structs and classes. The C++11 standard loosens up the restriction regarding members of unions, and in the last post, we explain the unrestricted unions feature that came with C++11.
Table of Contents
Where can I learn C++ with a free C++ compiler?
If you don’t know anything about C++ or the C++ Builder IDE, don’t worry, we have a lot of great examples on the LearnCPlusPlus.org website and they’re all completely free. Just visit this site and copy and paste any examples there into a new Console, VCL, or FMX project, depending on the type of post. We keep adding more C and C++ posts with sample code. In today’s round-up of recent posts on LearnCPlusPlus.org, we have new articles with very simple examples that can be used with:
- The free version of C++ Builder 11 CE Community Edition
- or a professional version of C++ Builder
- or free BCC32C C++ Compiler and BCC32X C++ Compiler
- or the free Dev-C++
Read the FAQ notes on the CE license and then simply fill out the form to download C++ Builder 11 CE.
How to use modern C++ with C++ Builder?
In C++, vectors are a modern and very flexible form of array in modern C++. Maybe we can say they are like modern linked lists. We can use vectors with std::thread classes for multi-thread operations. In the next post, we have a very good example that shows how you can use std::thread and std::vector together. https://learncplusplus.org/how-to-use-stdthread-with-stdvector-in-multi-thread-c-operations/
In modern C++ development we can use multi-thread operations and parallel programming features in our applications in different ways of modern programming features. The std::thread class is a special class defined in <thread> header in the concurrency support library that comes with C++11. We can use the std::thread class in multi-thread operations with functor objects, and in this post, we explain how to use std::thread with a functor object in C++. https://learncplusplus.org/how-to-use-functor-object-with-stdthread-in-c/
The Mutual Exclusion, or mutex, is an object that prevents multiple threads from accessing the same shared resource simultaneously. In programming, the Mutual Exclusion is a data exclusion method to lock and unlock data that provides use exclusive access to a resource. In the next post, we explain what is mutex how we can use it with simple examples. https://learncplusplus.org/what-is-a-mutex-mutual-exclusion-in-modern-c/
Another feature of modern C++ is the move constructor that allows you to move the resources from one object to another without copying them. The C++11 standard provides an alternative to std::move, which is std::move_if_noexcept, to solve some problematic interactions between move constructors, templates, and certain standard library member functions. In the next post, we explain what the move constructor is, what is std::move_if_noexcept, and how we allow move constructors to throw [noexcept] in C++. https://learncplusplus.org/allowing-move-constructors-to-throw-with-stdmove_if_noexcept/
Unions are used to define variables that share storage space. In the last post, we explain the unrestricted unions feature that came with C++11. https://learncplusplus.org/what-is-the-unrestricted-unions-feature-in-modern-c/
How to learn C++ for free using C++ Builder?
LearnCPlusPlus.org has been producing full of educational daily articles about C and modern C++ that can be used with C++ Builder, C++ Builder CE, Dev-C++, BCC Compiler and some other compilers such as the GCC compiler. Here are our post picks for today.
We like to hear your feedback. You motivate us so much with your likes and comments on social media (find us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit, Twitter / X and all over) and here on the blogs too. Thank you for your valuable comments and questions. All of them help improve the quality of our future posts and new code in these posts.
We have a lot of unique posts waiting to come. We keep adding new topics every week about C++ in general and specific topics for C++ Builder, Dev-C++, and for the other C++ compilers. Please keep following our LearnCPlusPlus.org website for the latest posts and updates. Feel free to comment and share with your colleagues, students, members – knowledge is power, and knowledge shared is empowering.
What is new in C++ Builder CE?
C++ Builder 11 CE which is the free Edition of C++ Builder has been recently released. Embarcadero has made available a Community Edition license for the most recent 11.3 release of Delphi and C++Builder. This is a free edition of either Delphi or C++Builder for students, hobbyists, and startups (as the license is revenue-limited).
What might be next for C++ Builder?
According to David Millington’s post, C++ Builder is aiming to include some amazing features; CLANG v15, support for C++20 and a lot of C++23 features, Win64 primary OS, new code completion, Visual Assist C++ navigation and refactoring, and lots more.
Note that Embarcadero announced the release of RAD Studio 11 Alexandria Release 3, also known as RAD Studio 11.3, along with Delphi 11.3 and C++Builder 11.3. This release is focused on quality and improvements, building on the great new features in RAD Studio 11 Alexandria three previous releases.
C++ Builder is the easiest and fastest C and C++ IDE for building simple or professional applications on the Windows, MacOS, iOS & Android operating systems. It is also easy for beginners to learn with its wide range of samples, tutorials, help files, and LSP support for code. RAD Studio’s C++ Builder version comes with the award-winning VCL framework for high-performance native Windows apps and the powerful FireMonkey (FMX) framework for cross-platform UIs.
There is a free C++ Builder Community Edition for students, beginners, and startups; it can be downloaded from here. For professional developers, there are Professional, Architect, or Enterprise version.