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Murach’s C++ Programming (2nd Edition)
List price: $59.50
Teaching modern C++ doesn't have to be difficult. Murach's C++ Programming helps you guide your students step-by-step, from the basics of programming to best practices for OOP to how to work with legacy code. Every chapter is carefully laid out so that by the time your students are done, not only will they have a solid foundation, but they'll also understand each concept and piece of code and be capable programmers in their own right.
Putting together a complete, effective course doesn't need to be time-consuming. In addition to the book, we provide all of the materials you need to quickly create a course. You can easily customize the provided slides, projects, and tests to suit your teaching style. What’s more, each project and line of code has been thoroughly tested to make sure you’re teaching code that “actually works!”
Canvas course file now available!
The Canvas course file contains all the objectives, quizzes, projects, case studies, and PowerPoint slides that you need to run an effective course. It only takes a few clicks to import it into the Canvas LMS. Then, you can customize it for your course. Learn more.
I am taking an object-oriented C++ course at a community college, and this book helps tremendously because it is skill-based, the most important selling point for beginners.”
- About this Book
- Table of Contents
- Courseware
- FAQs
- Corrections
Book description
How this book helps you teach C++
To make this book as effective as possible for you, the content is divided into four sections.
Section 1: Get your students off to a great start
- Section 1 presents a practical subset of modern C++ that gets your students off to a great start. In fact, by the end of chapter 2, they’ll have developed their first C++ programs that get input, process it, and display output. This section is especially designed for beginners, but you can adapt the pace if your students have already taken an introductory programming course.
- By the end of the eight chapters in this section, your students will be able to code, test, and debug C++ programs using decision statements, loops, I/O streams and files, various data types, vectors, and custom functions. In short, they’ll have a solid set of skills they’ll need for using C++ on the job every day.
- Although you can teach C++ using a text editor and a standalone compiler, this section shows how to use an IDE to work efficiently and effectively. We’ve found that having students take advantage of tools like syntax checkers and debuggers allows them to absorb the key concepts more easily and helps them get more practice in doing significant coding.
Section 2: More everyday skills as they’re needed
- Section 2 builds on the first section to present additional C++ skills that programmers use every day. These include working with structures, enumerations, built-in arrays, C strings, and exceptions.
- These chapters are modular and can be taught in the sequence that you prefer.
Section 3: Object-oriented programming
- Section 3 presents three chapters on object-oriented programming, complementing the procedural skills that are taught in sections 1 and 2. When your students complete this section, they’ll be able to develop programs that combine the best procedural practices with the best object-oriented practices.
- These essential OOP concepts are the same in all modern programming languages, so once your students master them - which is easy using our approach - they’ll be able to apply them in any other language they use.
Section 4: Data structures and algorithms (including legacy skills)
- Section 4 presents a short course in data structures and algorithms. It starts by presenting the containers and algorithms of the STL (Standard Template Library). Then, it covers the classic C++ skills your students need to handle legacy code or embedded systems, including working with memory and pointers.
- This section also shows how to use templates that allow a class to support multiple data types for generic programming.
- Finally, this section shows how to develop custom containers and algorithms that work like the containers and algorithms of the STL.
- Some of this material may go beyond the scope of your course. But your students will be glad to have this book on hand for learning and reference when they’re ready to tackle these subjects for their own work later on.
What courses this book can be used for
An introductory computer science course
- This book is designed for an introductory course where C++ is the language used to teach programming and OOP principles. Once your students learn the essentials of C++ programming, they’ll be well prepared to learn a second language like Java. They’ll also be ready to use their C++ skills to go on to courses in artificial intelligence, big data, GUI development, gaming, and the like.
A second language course
- This book will also work for a C++ course that’s offered after students have had an introductory course. It’s designed so you can move quickly through chapters your students already understand, skimming over familiar material and concentrating on the C++ specifics or on concepts that your students are struggling with. In fact, if your students have used a book from another publisher for their first language course, our book will help you clarify any concepts they’re confused about as you teach C++.
Why your students will learn faster and better with our book
We’ve designed this book to help you teach your students C++ as quickly and effectively as possible. Here are a few of the ways it does that:
- It presents C++ concepts and skills in the right order, at the right pace. Each topic is presented slowly and methodically in section 1, building up students’ skills and confidence, then picking up the pace once a solid foundation is in place.
- All the material is in our distinctive paired-pages format, where each topic is presented in a two-page spread: the examples and reference material are on the righthand page with additional explanation and perspective on the left. In today’s fast-paced world of eager students who want to read less, do more, and pick up information on demand, it’s the ideal format. Students love it!
- Besides fitting students’ learning style, the paired-pages format also helps your students do their assignments and prepare for tests by making it easy for them to review what they’ve learned and to refresh their memories on how to apply their new skills.
- This book presents dozens of complete programs. In each chapter, the programs start simply to illustrate the new concepts and skills, but then grow in complexity to illustrate the new skills in the context of real-world programming.
What software your students need
Because today’s programmers typically use IDEs to save time and quickly find errors, that’s how we present C++ coding in this book.
The two IDEs we specifically cover are Visual Studio with its Microsoft Visual C++ (MSVC) compiler for Windows and Xcode with the open-source Clang compiler for macOS. The appendixes show how to install the IDEs, chapter 1 gives a quick tutorial in using them, and chapter 8 covers tips for debugging within them.
However, you can use any IDE you want; the principles will be the same though the installation and user details will differ. Or, if you don’t want to use an IDE, you can use a text editor and a command line.
What people say about this book
“I have four other C++ books and this is by far the best one. Highly recommended.”
- Posted at an online bookseller
“I am taking an object-oriented C++ course at a community college, and this book helps tremendously because it is skill-based, the most important selling point for beginners.”
- Posted at an online bookseller
“As a long-time trainer and developer in other languages, I thought of C++ as being an unnecessarily complex language that wouldn’t help me with the applications I needed to create. Murach has created a C++ book that eased my concerns. I enthusiastically endorse this book.”
- Don Sheehan, Technical Trainer
“Murach's book did an excellent job explaining today’s C++, using simple yet meaningful code examples.”
- Posted at an online bookseller
“As a beginner in programming, I spent many frustrated months trying to learn C++ programming using several books, including both of Bjarne Stroustrup's books. None of them were clear and did not help me to reach the level I wanted to achieve. I bought your book, Murach's C++ Programming, and within days I was able to understand all the things I previously could not.”
- Thomas B. Wills
“Excellent. Everything taught is illustrated in examples, exercises and sample programs.”
- Posted at an online bookseller
“I bought this book to help tutor my daughter in a college C++ class she is taking. I was very impressed with how the book is laid out and how instructive it is. The two-page layout makes it extremely easy to grasp the concepts and visualize the code as you are learning it.”
- Posted at an online bookseller
“I wish more programming books were written / thought-out as well as this one.”
- Posted at an online bookseller
View the table of contents for this book in a PDF: Table of Contents (PDF)
Click on any chapter title to display or hide its content.
Section 1 Essential skills for modern C++
Chapter 1 An introduction to C++ programming
An overview of programming and C++
Four general-purpose programming languages
A brief history of C++
A quick look at C++ development
The user interface for a console application
The source code for a console application
How source code compiles to an executable file
Four popular IDEs and compilers
How to use Visual Studio for Windows development
How to open a project and work with source code
How to compile and run a project
How to use code completion and error detection
How to create a new project
How to use Xcode for macOS development
How to open a project and work with source code
How to compile and run a project
How to use code completion and error detection
How to create a new project
Chapter 2 How to write your first programs
Basic coding skills
How to code statements
How to code comments
How to code a main() function
How to create identifiers
How to work with numeric variables
How to define and initialize variables
How to code assignment statements
How to code arithmetic expressions
How to use the console for input and output
How to include header files
How to write output to the console
How to read input from the console
The Gallons to Liters program
How to work with the standard library
How to call a function
How to work with the std namespace
The Circle Calculator program
How to generate random numbers
How to work with char and string variables
How to assign values to char and string variables
How to work with special characters
How to read strings and chars from the console
How to fix a common problem with reading strings
The Guest Book program
How to test and debug a program
How to test a program
How to debug a program
Chapter 3 How to make decisions
How to get started with if statements
How to use the relational operators
How to code an if statement
How to work with braces
The Invoice 1.0 program
More skills for coding if statements
How to use the logical operators
If statements that use the logical operators
How to code nested if statements
The Invoice 2.0 program
Other ways to make decisions
How to use the conditional operator
How to code switch statements
More examples of switch statements
A switch statement for the Invoice 2.0 program
Chapter 4 How to code loops
More skills for coding arithmetic expressions
How to use arithmetic unary operators
How to use the compound assignment operators
How to work with the order of precedence
How to code while and do-while loops
How to code while loops
More examples of while loops
How to code do-while loops
The Test Scores program
How to code for loops and nested loops
How to code for loops
The Future Value program
How to code nested loops
How to code break and continue statements
How to code break statements
How to code continue statements
The Guess the Number program
Chapter 5 How to work with I/O streams and files
How to work with input streams
An introduction to streams and buffers
How unexpected input can cause problems
How to discard data from an input stream
How to detect data input errors
How to handle data input errors
How to work with output streams
An introduction to stream manipulators
How to specify the width of a column
How to right or left justify columns
How to format floating-point numbers
The Invoice 3.0 program
How to work with file streams
How to read and write a file
How to append data to a file
How to use the fstream object to work with files
How to check for errors when working with files
How to write delimited data
How to read delimited data
The Temperature Manager program
How to work with string streams
How to use a string stream to handle unexpected data
The Temperature Analyzer program
Chapter 6 How to work with data types, strings, and vectors
Basic skills for working with data types
The fundamental data types
How to define and initialize variables
How to define and initialize constants
The Light Years Calculator program
More skills for working with data types
How to work with type conversion
How to convert between numbers and strings
How to work with data type sizes and limits
How to fix problems with floating-point data
How to work with vectors
How to create a vector and refer to its elements
How to initialize and loop through a vector
How to use member functions of a vector
The Test Scores program
The Temperature Manager program
How to work with strings
How to create and loop through a string
How to use basic member functions of a string
How to search a string
How to work with substrings
How to modify a string
How to check characters within a string
The Create Account program
The Word Jumble program
Chapter 7 How to code functions
How to start coding your own functions
How to define and call a function
The Miles Per Gallon program
How to declare a function
When and how to use local and global variables
How to plan the functions of a program
How to use a hierarchy chart
The Convert Temperatures program
More skills for coding functions
How to use default values for arguments
How to overload a function
How to use reference variables as parameters
How to use reference parameters to improve efficiency
The Temperature Manager program
How to work with header files and namespaces
How to create, implement, and use header files
How to define namespaces
A header for getting input from the console
The Future Value program
Chapter 8 How to test, debug, and deploy an application
Basic skills for testing and debugging
Typical test phases
The three types of errors
Common C++ errors
How to plan the test runs
A simple way to trace code execution
How to use Visual Studio to debug a program
How to set and remove breakpoints
How to step through code
How to inspect variables
How to inspect the stack trace
How to use Xcode to debug a program
How to set and remove breakpoints
How to step through code
How to inspect variables
How to inspect the stack trace
How to deploy and run a program
How to deploy a program
How to run a deployed program
Section 2 More skills as you need them
Chapter 9 How to work with structures and enumerations
Basic skills for working with structures
How to get started with structures
How to initialize a structure
The Movie List 1.0 program
More skills for working with structures
How to nest structures
How to use structures with functions
How to compare structures for equality
How to work with member functions
How to work with member operators
The Movie List 2.0 program
How to work with enumerations
Basic skills for working with scoped enumerations
More skills for working with scoped enumerations
How to work with unscoped enumerations
The Monthly Bonus Calculator program
Chapter 10 How to work with built-in arrays and C strings
Basic skills for built-in arrays
How to create an array and access its elements
How to initialize an array
How to loop through an array
How to pass an array to a function
How to compare and copy arrays
The Test Scores program
How to work with C strings
An introduction to C strings
How to use C strings with input streams
Some utility functions for working with C strings
How to loop through a C string
The Create Account program
Advanced skills for built-in arrays
How to search an array
How to sort an array
How to work with a two-dimensional array
How to pass a two-dimensional array to a function
The Top Five program
Chapter 11 How to work with exceptions
How to get started with exceptions
A function that doesn’t use exceptions
How to throw an exception
How to catch an exception
A program that catches exceptions
A program that prevents exceptions from being thrown
More skills for working with exceptions
How to catch multiple exceptions
How to rethrow an exception
The Temperature Manager program
How to work with custom exceptions
How exception handling works
Section 3 Object-oriented programming
Chapter 12 How to define classes
An introduction to object-oriented programming
A Movie structure that doesn’t provide encapsulation
A Movie class that provides encapsulation
How to define private data members
How to define getter and setter functions
The Movie List 1.0 program
More skills for coding member functions
How to work with private member functions
How to overload a setter function
How to define constructors
How to define destructors
How to store a class in header and source files
The header and source files for a Movie class
When and how to use inline functions
The Movie List 2.0 program
How to work with UML diagrams
An introduction to UML diagrams
UML diagrams with data types
A Product class that implements a UML diagram
The Product Viewer program
How to work with object composition
A Die class
A Dice class
The Dice Roller program
The Pig Dice game
The console
The code
Chapter 13 How to work with inheritance
How to get started with inheritance
How inheritance works
How to define a superclass
How to define a subclass
How to define another subclass
How polymorphism works
The Product Viewer program
More skills for working with inheritance
How to define an abstract class
How to control overriding
How to work with multiple inheritance
How multiple inheritance works
The DayReader superclass
The DayWriter superclass
The DayIO subclass
Code that uses the DayIO subclass
When to use inheritance
How to use inheritance with custom exceptions
Guidelines for using inheritance
Chapter 14 More skills for object-oriented programming
How to work with static members
How to code static data members and functions
How to access static data members and functions
The Console class
Code that uses the Console class
How to work with a friend function
The FuelTank class
A friend function that works with two classes
How to overload operators
How to overload arithmetic binary operators
How to overload arithmetic unary operators
How to overload relational operators
How to overload the insertion and extraction operators
How to work with modules
How to work with a module that exports a function
How to work with a module that exports namespaces
How to work with a module that exports classes
How to use the export keyword for access control
How to use the import keyword
Section 4 Data structures and algorithms
Chapter 15 How to work with STL containers and iterators
An introduction to STL containers and iterators
A summary of STL containers
A summary of STL iterators
Basic skills for working with iterators
Member functions shared by the STL containers
How to iterate the data in a container
More skills for working with vectors
Member functions shared by the sequence containers
Member functions of a vector
How to set capacity to improve efficiency
The Movie Rankings 1.0 program
How to work with arrays
Basic skills for working with arrays
How to pass an array to a function
How to work with lists
An introduction to lists and forward lists
Member functions of a list
The Movie Rankings 2.0 program
How to work with queues and stacks
How to work with queues
How to work with stacks
How to work with sets
Member functions of associative containers
Code examples that work with sets
How to work with maps
Member functions and operators of a map
How to insert key/value pairs and work with values by key
The Word Counter program
How to work with nested containers
How to work with a vector of vectors
How to work with a map of vectors
Chapter 16 How to work with STL algorithms
An introduction to STL algorithms
The relationship between containers, iterators, and algorithms
How to call an algorithm
How to pass a function as an argument
Basic skills for working with algorithms
How to use non-modifying algorithms
How to use modifying algorithms
How to use the min and max algorithms
How to use the numeric algorithms
How to use the sort and binary search algorithms
The Number Cruncher program
More skills for working with algorithms
How to use algorithms with intervals of key/value pairs
How to use algorithms with nested containers
More skills for passing functions to algorithms
How to work with function templates
How to work with function objects
How to work with lambda expressions
The Uptime Percentage program
Chapter 17 How to work with memory and pointers
An introduction to memory and pointers
How physical memory works
How to define and use pointers
More skills for defining and using pointers
How pointer variables compare to reference variables
How to use pointers with functions
How and when to pass pointers to functions
How to use the this pointer in a member function
The Step Counter 1.0 program
The Step Counter 2.0 program
How to use pointers to work with dynamic memory
An overview of the types of storage
How to allocate and deallocate free store memory
How to avoid memory leaks and corruption
How to use RAII (Resource Acquisition Is Instantiation)
How to implement the Rule of Three with RAII
How to implement the Rule of Five with RAII
How to work with smart pointers
The Sensor Analysis program
More skills for working with pointers
How to compare pointers
How to use pointer arithmetic
How to work with void pointers
How to use pointers with inheritance
How complex compound types work
Chapter 18 How to work with templates
How to work with function templates
An overloaded function
A function template
How to code a function template with one type parameter
How to code a function template with multiple type parameters
How to work with class templates
How to code a simple class template
How to code a more complex class template
How to use a complex class template
How to code a function template that works with a class template
The Sensor Analysis program
Chapter 19 How to code custom containers, iterators, and algorithms
How to code a custom container
How to work with member types
The MyVector class declaration
The constructor and destructor definitions
The assignment operator definitions
The member function definitions
The Task Manager 1.0 program
How to code a custom iterator
How to work with iterator traits
The Link structure
The MyIterator class
The MyList class declaration
The destructor definition
The member function definitions
The Task Manager 2.0 program
How to code a custom algorithm
The find_midpoint() algorithm
The Number Cruncher program
Appendix
Appendix A How to set up Windows for this book
How to install the Visual Studio IDE
How to install the source code for this book
Appendix B How to set up macOS for this book
How to install the Xcode IDE
How to install the source code for this book
The supporting materials you need for teaching C++
Our instructor’s materials include everything you need for a complete and highly effective C++ course, whether you’re teaching an introduction to programming course, C++ as a second (or fourth or nth language), or a weekend extension course.
These materials include the specs, starting files, and solutions for projects and case studies; test banks; complete sets of PowerPoint slides; and more. A complete breakdown of everything we’ve included and why is available in our detailed Instructor’s Summary, but you can see the highlights below.
Taken together, these materials allow students to practice more…and learn more!…in much less time.
End-of-chapter (EOC) exercises in the book
- At the end of each chapter in the book, you’ll find carefully designed exercises that let your students (1) practice what they’ve just learned and (2) help them apply what they’ve learned in new ways.
- These exercises have your students use all of the important new skills in that chapter, of course. But beyond that, they have your students practice interrelated skills all at the same time. By seeing how these skills interact with each other and with previously learned code, students will better understand what they’re learning and why. And they’ll be better prepared for programming in the real world.
- The exercises start from partial programs, so your students can focus on new skills and not waste time on repetitive code that they’d never code from scratch in a work environment.
- Students can download the solutions to the EOC exercises (as well as the exercise starts) for free from our retail website. Why? We provide the solutions primarily for the professionals who use our books for self-training. But they can provide crucial educational support for students too. These solutions keep students from giving up when they get stuck on a problem at midnight, and the model code helps them refine their future work.
And don’t worry! We provide additional projects and case studies that you can use for testing, where the solutions are available only to instructors (see below).
Additional materials for instructors
The instructor .zip file and the Canvas course
The complete set of instructor’s materials described in the Instructor’s Summary can be downloaded from your instructor account page once you’ve submitted your request and we’ve approved it. The download is a .zip file.
If you use Canvas as your LMS, we’ve created a complete Canvas course for the book, using selected materials from our full set of instructor’s materials. This makes it easy for you to evaluate the components and see how they work together in a complete course. Again, if you request this file, it will be available to download from your instructor account page. It’s an .ismcc file.
This is the first Canvas course file we’ve created, so we’d really appreciate your feedback on it. Is it easy to install? Is there anything missing or unnecessary? What improvements can we make? Please let us know. Thank you!
Objectives
- For each chapter, we provide you with learning objectives that describe the skills that the students should master, and mastery can be measured by the test banks, projects, and case studies that we provide. As a result, you and your students can rely on them as guides through the course.
- Our objectives list what students will learn, and that’s all they need to learn. There are no surprises with unexpected skills hidden in the chapters.
Test banks
- To test comprehension, we provide test banks in multiple formats.
- Each test question in each test bank is designed to test the skill described by one chapter objective. This keeps the promise to the students that they will only be expected to have the skills that are described by the objectives.
- We use only multiple-choice test questions because they’re easy to score and (more importantly) have the highest validity. In other words, the students with the best knowledge and skills will get the best scores. In contrast, matching and true/false questions have low validity, so we don’t use them.
Projects
- The best way to develop programming skills is to write, test, and debug programs from scratch. To that end, we provide a set of projects for each chapter. These projects can be used for both practice and tests.
- To make the projects as useful as possible, ours provide a range of difficulty levels. That way, you can assign projects at levels that are appropriate for the students in your course.
- Because your students should be able to finish some of these projects in an hour or less, you can also use them as chapter tests that can be done in a computer lab.
Case studies
- We also provide case studies that can be used as midterm or final projects. These are designed so they shouldn’t take more than 10 to 12 hours. But they are also designed so you can easily modify them to make them more or less difficult.
- The case studies can be assigned in sections to span the length of your course if desired.
- Each case study reflects a program that the students might code in a work environment, giving them valuable real-world experience.
PowerPoint slides
- For each chapter, there’s a complete set of PowerPoint slides. You can use these slides as they are or edit them to suit your teaching style.
- In our books, the figures, or illustrations, on the righthand pages present all of the critical information on a topic, including screenshots, diagrams, summary points, tables, examples, and programs. Then, we build our PowerPoint slides from the figures, which means that our slides let you review the critical text material. This makes it easy to answer any questions that your students raise or review any skills that your students are having trouble with.
Accessibility
- To meet the accessibility needs of your students, both the PowerPoint slides and the eBook edition of our C++ text itself are in accessible format.
On this page, we’ll be posting answers to the questions that come up most often about our C++ book. So if you have any questions that you haven’t found answered here at our site, please email us. Thanks!
While we strive to make sure our books are as error-free as possible, we are aware that typos may creep in. So if you find any errors, we want to know. Please email us, and corrections that affect the technical accuracy of the book will be posted here. Thank you!
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