Using C++ in Embedded Systems – Applying C++11/14/17/20/23

Course overview:

Over the years, the object-orientated programming turned out to be a sound and battle-hardened way of working in system development. Traditionally C has been the dominating programming language in the embedded system context.

This training intends to introduce C++ as the common extension of C when applying object-oriented embedded system development. Since C++ encloses C, this training takes us from C to C++ in a natural way and looks under the hood of how C++ is implemented. This is especially valuable to comprehend when applying C++ in an embedded resource limited environment.

The recent years the C++ standard has been undergoing a few revisions - a.k.a. as C++11, C++14, C++17, C++20 - and C++23. This course addresses subjects brought in with these revisions that are especially useful like high performance memory management, concurrency making use of a multicore environment, and bare-metal close to the hardware programming.

Goal/Benefits:

The major objective of this class is that you shall be able to use C++ in a “correct way”.

♦ Introduce C++ as an object-oriented language alternative in an embedded system context

♦ Show the similarities - and differences - with the C language

♦ Comprehend different memory management strategies – especially the move semantics introduced with C++11

♦ Look under the hood and understand what different paradigms in C++ leads to in machine code

♦ Discuss about using constexpr to get things done already at compile-time –the replacement for macros and hardcoded literals

♦ To use templates to achieve type safe high order abstractions for bare-metal close to the hardware programming – memory mapped I/O as well as interrupts - especially the variadic templates introduced with C++11

♦ Reason about the concept of cooperative multitasking in terms of coroutines, introduced in C++20

♦ Provide some useful design patterns especially applicable in an embedded context

♦ A few exercises to practice some concepts

Audience/Participants:

This training is aimed C++- programmers who intend to start using C++ in an embedded system context.

Previous Knowledge:

The course requires basic knowledge in C++ programming, corresponding to our trainings ”C++ Level 1 – An Odyssey of C++: Core Language” and ”C++ Level 2 – An Odyssey of C++: Standard Library”.

Practical Exercises:

During the training you will practice the presented concepts in a few exercises. We will use the open and free integrated development environment from Eclipse.

Course outline:

1. What’s an Embedded System?

♦ Simple Definition

♦ Some Milestones

♦ Characteristics

♦ Why using C++?

2. Comparison with C

♦ C: A subset of C++ - almost

♦ Performance

♦ Added "Free" Functionality

♦ Why not using C++?

3. Classes

♦ Member Variables

• Instance variables

• Class variables

♦ Member Functions

• Instance functions

• Class functions

♦ Implicit Methods

• Constructor

o Initialization

o Uniform Initialization with Initializer Lists

o Delegation

• Destructor

• Copy assignment operator

♦ Rvalue references and Move Semantics – avoiding unnecessary deep copy

♦ struct in C++

♦ Package/Namespace

4. Inheritance

♦ Realization

♦ Performance

♦ Multiple Inheritance

♦ Virtual Inheritance

5. Polymorphism

♦ Virtual Function

♦ Virtual Destructor

♦ Implementation

♦ Runtime Type Information, RTTI

♦ Performance

6. Templates

♦ Function Template

♦ Class Template

♦ Variadic Templates

♦ Code Bloat

♦ Implementation Strategies

♦ Template versus Inheritance?

7. Error Handling

♦ Exception Handling

♦ Performance Issues

♦ Implementation

8. Inline Code

♦ When to Use?

♦ Strategies

9. Start-up

♦ System Start-up

♦ The C Part

♦ The C++ Part

10. Standard Library

♦ Standard Template Library, STL

♦ iostream Library

♦ STL Major Extensions due to Modern C++:

• Rvalue References - Move semantics

• Variadic Templates

• Concurrency

11. Memory Management

♦ The C++ Memory Model

• Standardized Word Widths - The stdint-types

• Strongly Typed Enumerations

• Atomic Types and their Operations

♦ constexpr

♦ std::byte

♦ Standard Library Allocator API

♦ Strategies

♦ Variables

♦ Placement new

♦ User Defined Memory Management

12. Interoperation between C and C++

♦ Name Mangling

♦ Static Initialization

♦ Dynamic Memory

♦ struct Contents

• POD – Plain Old Data type

13. Design Patterns

♦ RAII - Resource Acquisition Is Initialization

♦ Memory-mapped I/O

♦ Interrupt

♦ Initialization of Static Objects