1. Introduction
- What Are Application Programming Interfaces?
- What's Different about API Design?
- Why Should You Use APIs?
- When Should You Avoid APIs?
- API Examples
- File Formats and Network Protocols
- About This Book
2. Qualities
- Model the Problem Domain
- Hide Implementation Details
- Minimally Complete
- Easy to Use
- Loosely Coupled
- Stable, Documented, and Tested
3. Patterns
- Pimpl Idiom
- Singleton
- Factory Methods
- API Wrapping Patterns
- Observer Pattern
4. Design
- A Case for Good Design
- Gathering Functional Requirements
- Creating Use Cases
- Elements of API Design
- Architecture Design
- Class Design
- Function Design
5. Styles
- Flat C APIs
- Object-Oriented C++ APIs
- Template-Based APIs
- Data-Driven APIs
6. C++ Usage
- Namespaces
- Constructors and Assignment
- Const Correctness
- Templates
- Operator Overloading
- Function Parameters
- Avoid #define for Constants
- Avoid Using Friends
- Exporting Symbols
- Coding Conventions
7. Performance
- Pass Input Arguments by Const Reference
- Minimize #include Dependencies
- Declaring Constants
- Initialization Lists
- Memory Optimization
- Don't Inline Until You Need To
- Copy on Write
- Iterating Over Elements
- Performance Analysis
8. Versioning
- Version Numbers
- Software Branching Strategies
- Life Cycle of an API
- Levels of Compatibility
- How to Maintain Backward Compatibility
- API Reviews
9. Documentation
- Reasons to Write Documentation
- Types of Documentation
- Documentation Usability
- Using Doxygen
10. Testing
- Reasons to Write Tests
- Types of API Testing
- Writing Good Tests
- Writing Testable Code
- Automated Testing Tools
11. Scripting
- Adding Script Bindings
- Script-Binding Technologies
- Adding Python Bindings with Boost Python
- Adding Ruby Bindings with SWIG
12. Extensibility
- Extending via Plugins
- Extending via Inheritance
- Extending via Templates
Appendix A: Libraries
- Static versus Dynamic Libraries
- Libraries on Windows
- Libraries on Linux
- Libraries on Mac OS X
Bibliography
Index
The design of application programming interfaces can affect the behavior, capabilities, stability, and ease of use of end-user applications. With this book, you will learn how to design a good API for large-scale long-term projects. With extensive C++ code to illustrate each concept, API Design for C++ covers all of the strategies of world-class API development. Martin Reddy draws on over fifteen years of experience in the software industry to offer in-depth discussions of interface design, documentation, testing, and the advanced topics of scripting and plug-in extensibility. Throughout, he focuses on various API styles and patterns that will allow you to produce elegant and durable libraries.
Key Features
- The only book that teaches the strategies of C++ API development, including design, versioning, documentation, testing, scripting, and extensibility.
- Extensive code examples illustrate each concept, with fully functional examples and working source code for experimentation available online.
- Covers various API styles and patterns with a focus on practical and efficient designs for large-scale long-term projects.
All software engineers developing C++ code to be used by other developers, whether via APIs, libraries, device drivers, or other reusable components.
About the Author
Dr. Martin Reddy is the founder and CEO of the software consultancy firm Code Reddy Inc. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science and has over 15 years of experience in the software industry. During this time, he has written 3 software patents and has published over 40 professional articles and a book on 3D computer graphics. Dr. Reddy worked for 6 years at Pixar Animation Studios where he was lead engineer for the studio's in-house animation system. This work involved the design and implementation of various APIs to support several Academy Award-winning and nominated films, such as "Finding Nemo", "The Incredibles", "Cars", "Ratatouille", and "Wall-E." Dr. Reddy currently works for Linden Lab on the Second Life Viewer, an online 3D virtual world that has been used by over 16 million users around the world. His work is currently focused on a radical redesign of the Second Life Viewer, putting in place a suite of robust APIs to enable extensibility and scriptability.
Reader comments
"Martin Reddy draws from his experience on large scale, collaborative software projects to present patterns and practices that provide real value to individual developers as well as organizations. API Design for C++ explores often overlooked issues, both technical and non- technical, contributing to successful design decisions that produce high quality, robust, and long-lived APIs."
-- Eric Gregory, Software Architect, Pixar Animation Studios
"Intended for programmers with intermediate to advanced skills in the C++ programming language, this guide to the building of useful and robust application programming interfaces (APIs) provides practical instruction for software engineers developing systems on which downstream software engineers depend. The work provides a methodical approach to API design covering solution based API design, performance, versioning, documentation, testing, scripting, extensibility and libraries. The work includes numerous illustrations and code examples and access to additional online resources is provided. Reddy is a software development consultant."
-- Book News, Reference & Research
Product Details
- Paperback: 472 pages
- Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann; 1 edition (February 18, 2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0123850037
- ISBN-13: 978-0123850034
List Price: $59.95