My favorite C++14 features

Posted on March 14, 2022

Following my previous post here are my favorite C++14 features. There are not that many because C++14 in itself was a rather small update to the of the standard.

Language updates

There were not many language updates. The more noticable ones are generic lambdas, type deduction for function return types, variable templates, and looser restricitons when using constexpr.

From these, for me the improved constexpr experience is the biggest one. Being able to use for loops, ifs and switches makes constexpr much more useful tool.

constexpr bool are_positive(int values[], int size) {
    for (int i = 0; i < size; ++i) {
        if (values[i] < 1) {
            return false; 
        }
    }

    return true;
}

When it comes to smaller features I really like that we can now use binary literals and digit separators.

int value = 0b101010; // yay
int big_number = 1'123'123'123 // yay2

Binary numbers are especially handy. I know most of the time hexadecimal values are a better fit but I came into problems where binary made more sense due to the context.

STL updates

There were not many new things that came to the STL but a lot of already existing things were extended with constexpr which is super cool IMHO. Besides that std::make_unique got added which I used always when making smart pointers. It is nice because it will create value in place and is just more concise.

#include <memory>

struct Point {
    Point(int x, int y) : x(x), y(y) {
    }
    int x, y;
};

int main() {
    auto p1 = std::make_unique<Point>(1, 2);
    auto p2 = std::unique_ptr<Point>(new Point(1, 2));
}

C++14

In general, there isn't much in C++14 besides small improvements here and there. The focus on taking advantage of constexpr has been nice, and the few quality of life improvements like binary literals and digit separators are always welcome I think.