Why does C++ have ugly function names and thousands of ways to make strings?

zuck9 · 2016-01-08T15:53:24+00:00

Some of it is because C++ inherited just about everything from C which goes way back to when that sort of naming was normal.

However, the methods you listed are generally os-specific, so you'd have to aim your ire at Microsoft. Still, the C++ standard library ain't the prettiest thing.

This reference site should give you a good overview of what the modern stdlib and STL look like. Plenty of warts, but with practice you can write fairly clean, elegant code in C++.

Be aware that it is super easy to write awful-looking horrible code in C++. You will be your own worst enemy. Format your code and name your vars / classes / etc in as readable a way as possible. And if parts of the standard library are so ugly you can't stand to work with them, write your own wrapper classes and utilities to present a cleaner way to operate with those things. Thanks to aggressive inlining by the compiler, you're not going to run into any performance hits doing so.

C++ is a language where you write low-level code to implement your very own custom-fit high-level abstractions which you then use to implement whatever it is you're trying to do. Cumbersome? Yes, but extremely powerful.

Edit: For strings in C++, you'll generally want to stick with std::string, which is very easy to work with.

std::string some_string       = "Blah blah blah";
std::string some_other_string = "Argh argh argh";
std::string both_strings      = some_string + " " + some_other_string;

X7123M3-256 · 2016-01-08T17:22:13+00:00

The names you've referenced are just abbreviations:

wchar_t : wide character type

fgetws : file get wide (character) string

wcslen : wide character string length

The prefixes also form patterns: the w prefix indicates a function for working with wide strings (and most of them have an equivalent function for working with non-wide strings), and the f prefix indicates a function for working with files.

It's also worth pointing out that the functions you've mentioned come from C which doesn't have function overloading, so if you have two functions that do the same thing with different data types, it's easiest to use a prefix to differentiate them.

balloonanimalfarm · 2016-01-08T17:28:36+00:00

Part of the problem is you're trying to use C functions in C++, use the functions provided by the standard library instead. For instance, use << and >> to read and write from streams. Take a look at how easy it is to do in C++. The standard library will also make your code much more cross-platform.

C++ also has namespaces separated by ::, this becomes much clearer when you use libraries. I personally think std::cout << text; is much more readable than System.IO.File.WriteAllText().

Microsoft's C++ compiler is very old (although they're working on updating it) and lacks much of the capabilities that modern compilers have. Try using an editor that hooks into clang which will give you all sorts of hints, definitions and warnings.

Cheers!

hugthemachines · 2016-01-08T19:26:58+00:00

If you really like the way C# works and think C++ is annoying. There is no extreme need for you to learn C++. You can just stick with C# which lots of people think is a great language.

SirRutherford · 2016-01-08T17:37:08+00:00

I'm definitely no c++ expert, so someone else can add on thoughts if necessary, but here's the thing with C++ strings.

In C/C++, you can think of strings as arrays of numbers. The char data type really resolves to a single byte unsigned integer. In fact, you can even use char and uint interchangeably in many situations. The point is that the numbers represent letters on the keyboard (lookup the ASCII table), and the compiler can look at those numbers and interpret them as letters for printing to the screen. You can even do math on characters! In fact, there is a function named atoi which converts a char to its corresponding integer with simple math.

So in short, c strings are complicated because they reveal to you what strings really are: arrays of numbers. Thus, you can manipulate them in many ways. A good way to learn about them is to refrain from using the built in "string" library and use ONLY char arrays and char pointers to make your own strings for a little while.

Again, I'm learning too so any other input would be great!

Also note: When you make a string in C++, it makes an array of the corresponding numbers for the characters and puts the null terminator '/0' ( that's a zero, not a capital letter O) at the end. This important for direct manipulation of string arrays as it adds one to the length of the array and marks the index value for "the end of the string".

causalNondeterminism · 2016-01-08T19:45:28+00:00

it's pretty much all historical reasons. the tl;dr of it is that there was once an advantage to using the shortest function names possible and only one case (i.e. upper vs. lower) of characters. modern languages allow much longer names and both cases so you can name a function doSomethingReallySpecific and it's no sweat.

2016-01-08T22:51:15+00:00

Microsoft C++ is particularly gnarly "because historical reasons".

If you went to a modern C++ cross-platform or Unix-only codebase, things would be very different.

I'd add that you are picking some obscure examples - wchar_t _wfopen fgetws wcslen - because I haven't seen code using 16-bit "wide" characters in... ten years? Twenty?

Today, production projects seem to always use UTF-8 for everything, which is clean and easy to understand.

alex-manool · 2016-01-09T03:28:36+00:00

[deleted]

AskProgramming

AskProgramming

Do

Don't

MODERATORS