April 25, 2000

Question: How do I test the number of ‘characters’ contained within a given variable? Answer: Try this: Debug.Print “Length: ” & Len(CStr(X)) Once you convert a variable to a string,

STL’s unique() algorithm eliminates all but the first element from every consecutive group of equal elements in a sequence of elements. unique() takes two forward iterators, the first of which

A bit field can be signed or unsigned. According to the C++ standard, a signed bit field may be represented in one of three ways: two’s complement one’s complement sign

Although usually I don’t recommend using macros in C++ code, there are a few exceptions. One such exception is when you want to create a truly immutable constant. Consider the

If you happen to define an object or a function or a constant whose name collides with a macro located elsewhere in a third-party header file, as in: // file

Open source products come with their source code files. Although you can usually install a ready-made executable file, you want to take advantage of the available source code files and

Many modern operating systems support Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP)?a hardware architecture that uses two or more processors on one machine and enables you to achieve true multitasking. On SMP architectures, multithreaded

The members of an enumerated type are called enumerators. For example: enum Direction { Up, // an enumerator Down // another enumerator }; int main() {} An enumerator’s scope is

I receive many questions from readers asking for guidance on how to port an existing C++ app to a different compiler or platform. Porting software can be very easy or