COMS W4995 C++ Deep Dive for C Programmers

Fall 2026

• COMS 4995-011: Tuesday & Thursday 5:40-6:55pm, 411 Hamilton Hall 428 Pupin Laboratories

• Two synchronous and in-person exams:

  • Exam 1: Tuesday October 27, 5:40p - 6:55p
  • Exam 2: Tuesday December 22, 7:00p - 10:00p (to be confirmed)

  There are no make-up or alternate exams. If you cannot make any of those exams, please take the course next time.

• Instructor: Hans J. Montero

• Office hours:
  • Hans & TA office hours
• Anonymous feedback form

Course essentials

• OVERVIEW AND LOGISTICS
• REQUIRED READING: ACADEMIC HONESTY POLICIES
• Linux Programming Environment – same as COMS 3157
• Jae’s Git Tutorial – same as COMS 3157
• Lab Workflow
• Helpful Guides

Important Dates

Date	Assignment
F 9/11	HW0 due
F 9/25	Lab 1 due
F 10/9	Lab 2 due
F 10/23	Lab 3 due
T 10/27	Exam 1

Course Schedule

Lecture 1: T 9/8

Course overview and logistics

• OVERVIEW AND LOGISTICS
  • 00-overview

• Assignments:

  1. Subscribe to c2cpp@lists.cs.columbia.edu – see L00 above

  2. Read the following two documents:
     • http://www.cs.columbia.edu/education/honesty
     • http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~jae/honesty.html

  3. HW0 due Fri 9/11, 11:59pm

     Send an email to Hans and Jae containing:

     • To: hans@cs.columbia.edu, jae@cs.columbia.edu
     • Subject: “[c2cpp] hw0-UNI” – without quotes, sole space before hw0, UNI replaced with your actual UNI in lowercase
     • Your name, major & school program, year – e.g., Hans Montero, Computer Science, Columbia Engineering, class of 2021
     • Your pledge – see http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~jae/honesty.html
     • CS classes taken and/or other programming background
     • Optionally anything else you want to let us know
     • Optionally attach a picture of you, but please reduce image file size to about 100KB

C to C++

• Lecture: 01-c2cpp
  • Compiling & linking C/C++ code with Makefile
  • Introduction to string, iostream, namespace
• Source code:
  • Makefile, hello.cpp

Lecture 2: R 9/10

Basic-4 in C++

• Lecture: 02-basic4
  • Member functions
  • Constructors and destructors
  • Stack allocations and heap allocations
• Source code: Makefile, basic4.cpp

Lecture 3: T 9/15

Basic-4 in C++ (continued)

• Lecture: 02-basic4
  • heap allocation of arrays
  • passing by value vs. passing by reference
  • const member function
  • copy elision
• Source code: Makefile, basic4.cpp

Lecture 4: R 9/17

Basic-4 in C++ (continued)

• Lecture: 02-basic4
  • copy elision
  • three cases of copy construction
  • copy assignment
  • compiler-generated basic4
• Source code: Makefile, basic4.cpp

MyString class

• Lecture: 03-mystring
  • Motivation
  • Source code overview
    • mystring.h vs. mystring.cpp
    • Makefile and test drivers
  • MyString constructor
• Source code: MyString class & test drivers

Lecture 5: T 9/22

MyString class (continued)

• Lecture: 03-mystring
  • Basic-4 of MyString class
  • Inlining member functions
  • operator+
• Source code: MyString class & test drivers

Lecture 6: R 9/24

MyString class (continued)

• Lecture: 03-mystring
  • put-to & get-from operators
  • operator[]
  • Exception handling
• Source code: MyString class & test drivers

Function template

• Lecture: 04-function-template
  • Defining a function template
  • Overloading function template with non-template function

Lecture 7: T 9/29

Function template (continued)

• Lecture: 04-function-template
  • Template compilation model
• Source code: Max() function template & test code

Dynamically growable array

• Lecture: 05-dynamically-growable-array
  • IntArray class & code walkthrough
  • Time complexity of push_back()
  • Strong exception guarantee
  • Member initializer list
• Source code: Makefile, intarray1.cpp
• Lecture outline

Lecture 8: R 10/1

Move semantics

• Lecture: 06-move-semantics
  • Motivation: returning large objects efficiently
  • Implementing move constructor
  • Copy elision eliminates move constructor calls
  • L-value vs. r-value references
  • Implementing move assignment
  • Casting to rvalue reference
  • std::move()
• Source code: Makefile, intarray2.cpp, rvalue-test.cpp
• Lecture outline

Vec class template

• Lecture: 07-vec-class-template
  • Turning IntArray into a class template
• Source code: Makefile, vec1.cpp,
• Lecture outline

Lecture 9: T 10/6

Vec class template (continued)

• Lecture: 07-vec-class-template
  • Value semantics of STL containers
  • Stack & heap diagram of Vec<MyString>
  • Placement new()
  • Strong exception guarantee revisited
• Source code: Makefile, vec2.cpp, vec3.cpp, mystring.h, mystring.cpp
• Lecture outline

Inheritance and Polymorphism

• Lecture: 08-inheritance
  • Inheritance basics
  • Memory layout of derived classes
• Source code: Makefile, inherit1.cpp
• Lecture outline

Lecture 10: R 10/8

Inheritance and Polymorphism (continued)

• Lecture: 08-inheritance
  • Memory layout of derived classes (review)
  • Static binding vs. dynamic binding
  • Virtual function table (vtable)
  • Multiple inheritance without virtual functions
  • static_cast
  • Multiple inheritance with virtual functions
• Source code: Makefile, inherit1.cpp, inherit2.cpp
• Lecture outline

Lecture 11: T 10/13

Inheritance and Polymorphism (continued)

• Lecture: 08-inheritance
  • Multiple inheritance with virtual functions (review)
  • The diamond problem
  • Virtual inheritance
  • Order of construction & destruction
  • Pure virtual functions & abstract class
  • Virtual destructor
• Source code: Makefile, inherit2.cpp inherit3.cpp inherit4.cpp inherit5.cpp
• Lecture outline

I/O streams

• Lecture: 09-io-streams
  • Using I/O streams
  • I/O manipulator
  • I/O stream class hierarchy
• Source code: Makefile, io1.cpp,
• Lecture outline

Lecture 12: R 10/15

I/O streams (continued)

• Lecture: 09-io-streams
  • I/O stream states
  • Recovering from I/O failure
  • Mixing C and C++ I/O
  • I/O of user-defined structure
  • String streams
  • File streams
• Source code: Makefile, io1.cpp, io2.cpp, io3.cpp,
• Sample input files: good, malformed
• Lecture outline

Lecture 13: T 10/20

STL Sequence Containers

• Lecture: 10-sequence-containers
  • Arrays in C++
  • std::array
  • std::vector
  • std::deque
  • std::list
  • std::forward_list
• Source code: Makefile, stl.cpp

Lecture 14: R 10/22

Iterators

• Lecture: 11-iterators
  • Coming soon

Exam 1: T 10/27

Exam 1

• Coverage:
  • Labs 1, 2, and 3
  • Lecture notes 1-9
    • Up to and including I/O streams chapter
    • Skip I/O stream states
  • Sample exams
  • All ANN emails

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Last updated: 2026-10-19