Advanced C++ Programming

A collection of C++ exercises and examples from the Master in High Performance Computing (MHPC) curriculum at SISSA/ICTP, Trieste. Covers modern C++17 from fundamentals through templates and metaprogramming, then extends to parallel scientific computing with MPI and the C++ standard library.

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Structure

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├── examples/        # Standalone feature examples (strings, lambdas, OOP, memory)
├── lec1–lec7/       # Daily exercises (progressive difficulty)
├── advection_ex/    # Standalone 1D advection PDE solver
├── l8_mpi/          # Distributed memory parallelism (MPI)
├── l9_std/          # Shared memory parallelism (C++17 std::execution)
├── l10_test/        # Unit testing with Google Test
└── fun/             # Conway's Game of Life with SFML

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Weekly Exercises

Day 1 — Basics

References, functions, file I/O, first classes, operator overloading, templates intro. Key exercise: matrixMultiplication/ — matrix multiply from scratch with CMake.

Day 2 — Memory Management

Manual allocation (new/delete), destructors, copy and move constructors, smart pointers. Key exercise: matrixMemory/ — matrix class in two versions: raw pointers vs. unique_ptr.

Day 3 — STL Containers & Algorithms

std::vector, std::map, std::string, STL algorithms, lambda functions, scoped timer. Key exercises:

• addMat/ — matrix class with operator+, operator*, and operator<<
• simpleTime/ — custom scoped timer measuring matrix operations
• sortTime/ & vecTiming/ — STL sort performance benchmarking

Day 4 — Jacobi Solver

A 2D heat equation solver using J acobi iteration. Demonstrates mesh data structures, boundary conditions, and file-driven parameters. Output can be animated with gnuplot.

cd lec4/jacobi && mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. && make
./jacobi ../parameters.txt
gnuplot ../gif.gp   # generates jacobi.gif

Day 5 — Iterators & Custom Containers

Custom linked list with a full iterator interface (range-based for, push_back, push_front, find, erase). Template classes with proper copy semantics.

Day 6 — Templates & Metaprogramming

• fibonacci/ — compile-time Fibonacci via template recursion and if constexpr (C++17)
• varSmall/ — variadic templates
• tuple/ — std::tuple and structured bindings

Day 7 — Advanced OOP

• shapes/ — polymorphic shape hierarchy: abstract base class, Triangle and variadic-template Polygon, virtual perimeter() and print_coordinates()
• errorHandling/ — custom exception class integrated into the bisection root finder
• pointerMatrix/ — pointer-based dynamic 2D array

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Standalone Projects

1D Advection Solver

Solves the 1D scalar advection equation over 100,000 time steps using a template mesh class and lambda-based boundary conditions. Outputs field snapshots for gnuplot animation.

cd advection_ex && mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. && make
./advection
gnuplot ../gif.gp   # generates advection.gif

Conway's Game of Life

Interactive Game of Life rendered with SFML. The grid is a class inheriting from sf::Drawable, with live/dead cell tracking, next_generation() stepping, and save/load functionality. Includes several saved patterns (gun.txt, ships.txt, etc.).

# Ubuntu/Debian: sudo apt install libsfml-dev
g++ -o life.x life.cpp -lsfml-window -lsfml-graphics -lsfml-system
./life.x              # draw cells, press Space to start, S to save, Q to quit
./life.x gun.txt      # load a saved pattern

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Parallel Computing

MPI — Distributed Memory

Directory	Demonstrates
hello/	MPI initialization, rank, size
comms/	Point-to-point MPI_Send / MPI_Recv
ring/, ring2/	Ring communication pattern
mpi_functions/	Collective operations: allgather, allreduce, scatter, gather (and v variants)
mpi_matrix/	Distributed matrix operations
mpi_scheduler/	Dynamic work distribution across processes
advection_parallel/	Domain decomposition applied to the advection solver

See mpi/mpi_intro.md for an overview of MPI concepts.

C++17 Standard Parallelism

Directory	Demonstrates
par_jacobi/	Jacobi solver parallelized with std::execution::par
module_jacobi/	Modular refactoring of the Jacobi solver
span/	std::span for non-owning array views (C++20)

Testing with Google Test

Directory	Demonstrates
jacobi_test/	Unit tests for the Jacobi solver
3d_jacobi/	3D extension of the solver
pi/	Monte Carlo π calculation with validation tests

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Examples Reference

The examples/ directory contains self-contained files demonstrating individual language features:

File / Directory	Feature
cppstring.cpp	std::string — construction, capacity, iteration
operators1–3.cpp	Operator overloading, friend operators
lambdas.cpp	Captures (by value/reference), mutable, STL integration
iterator.cpp	Custom iterator for a template class
custom_alloc.cpp	Custom memory allocation patterns
errors/try1–6.cpp	Exception hierarchy, custom ap_error class
inheritance/	Single/multiple inheritance, virtual functions, virtual destructor
memory/new1–5.cpp	new/delete, copy/move semantics, unique_ptr

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Building

All exercises use CMake:

mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make

MPI examples require an MPI implementation (OpenMPI or MPICH):

cd l8_mpi/hello && mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. && make
mpirun -np 4 ./mpi_hello.x

Game of Life requires the SFML library (no CMake — compile directly):

# Ubuntu/Debian: sudo apt install libsfml-dev
cd fun/sfml
g++ -o life.x life.cpp -lsfml-window -lsfml-graphics -lsfml-system
./life.x              # optionally pass a saved pattern file as argument

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Part Of

Master in High Performance Computing (MHPC)
SISSA / ICTP / University of Trieste — 2025/26 Course: P1.4 — Advanced Programming (C++)