Miscellaneous

In this age of cloud computing, massive parallel systems and complex security threats like identity theft and decentralized botnets, devoting resources to combat the seemingly age-old issue of integer overflow appears distinctly passC). Despite the fact that integer overflow is such a well know problem, particularly within C and C++ programming, the problem remains a real issue from both a defect and security standpoint, that's why the introduction of the SafeInt template class in Visual C++ 2010 to address overflows is a great addition.

Unquestionably, the most effective tool for a C++ programmer's productivity is the Standard library's rich collection of algorithms. In 2008, about 20 new algorithms were voted into the C++0x draft standard. These new algorithms let you among the rest copy n elements intuitively, perform set theory operations, and handle partitions conveniently. Find out how to use these algorithms to make your code more efficient and intuitive.

Application manifest files provide a declarative means for an application to detail its dependencies and runtime requirements. Each version of Windows and Visual C++ adds further options that can be specified in the application manifest file, and it is important for correct application deployment and execution that the Visual C++ developer keeps up to date with these advances.

Find out how to use nullptr to avert bugs and simplify the future maintenance of your C++ applications.

Using shared_ptr instead of raw pointers helps you avoid the common pitfalls associated with raw pointers but in some cases, its performance isn't satisfactory. Unique_ptr is a new C++0x smart pointer that is compact, fast and fully compatible with the standard library. Find out how to use unique_ptr to make your code safer without sacrificing performance.

In this C++ tutorial, learn how to utilize Lambda expressions in your C++ Applications.

An Object Oriented approach to handling XML.

This tutorial shows you how to use Visual Studio 2008 with SP1 to build your first Dynamic Data web application and explore its features.

Serialize and deserialize XML files and XML buffer with this set of macros and classes. The serializer uses ATL String and ATL collections. Get the object representations of XML files and a means to store and load objects to and from XML.

Got XML files? Look no further than libxml2, which gives you both DOM and SAX model XML parsing in a single freeware library that works with most common languages in all popular platforms including Linux and Win32/Win64.

Learn how to write server applications. One of the recurring tasks was dealing with the problem of creating an instance of a class associated with a unique resource of the operating system, such as a file.

Custom controls assist developers in maximizing code reuse and minimizing headaches. Learn the process of creating custom controls within Microsoft's latest UI model, the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF).

To begin writing raw PDF files, you need a solid working knowledge of PostScript—and that's not pretty. In reality, you need a complete PDF library that handles all your document-creation needs.

Spell checkers for the Visual C++ and Visual Basic developer are plentiful and easy to integrate. So, why not enable your interactive applications to help users look a little smarter?

Learn about a new utility to analyse the data's structure on a DVD.

Win32 has a built-in INI file API, but writing cross-platform code is difficult because these functions aren't available on Linux.

Go one step beyond the Standard Template Library (STL) with the Database Template Library (DTL), which offers many advantages over the traditional procedural approach to database access.

Learn about the differences between little- and big-endian representations.

The STL is primarily made up of templates for containers, iterators, and algorithms, but it also has a few utility templates. Learn more in this excerpt from "Effective C++, Third Edition: 55 Specific Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs."

In this follow-up article to learning how to use the XmlTextReader to enumerate the nodes of an XML file, Tom Archer illustrates how to skip non-content and whitespace nodes and how to locate and read attribute values.

BizTalk 2004 Pipelines offer you a great deal of control over the processing of BizTalk 2004 messages. With custom Pipeline components, you can handle non-XML data in BizTalk messages, even when the data is in non-delimited file formats.

Learn new ways to work with Excel spreadsheets through the use of XML.

CXMLMgr is a very simple MSXML 4.0 DOM wrapper class that can be used to manipulate XML files. It can be used in MFC as well as Win32.

XAML (Extensible Application Markup Language) is the codename for a new Microsoft markup language used to create UI elements for client applications in the forthcoming Windows release codenamed "Longhorn." The main XAML benefit to developers is that you'll be able to separate the application logic code from presentation code.