Advanced C++ Features and Data Structures

This course features Coursera Coach! A smarter way to learn with interactive, real-time conversations that help you test your knowledge, challenge assumptions, and deepen your understanding as you progress through the course. Take your C++ programming skills to the next level by mastering advanced features and foundational data structures essential for building high-performance software. In this comprehensive course, you'll explore file handling, inheritance, polymorphism, templates, the Standard Template Library (STL), and core data structures such as stacks, queues, and linked lists. You’ll begin with file input/output, learning how to read from and write to files to persist data across sessions. Real-world projects like salary reports and student rosters reinforce your ability to manage external data. Next, you'll dive into object-oriented programming with inheritance and polymorphism, building derived classes and role-based systems like an RPG character creator to see these concepts in action. As the course progresses, you’ll explore C++ templates and the STL, learning how to write reusable, efficient code using powerful generic containers and algorithms. You’ll also cover critical concepts like smart pointers, operator overloading, and rules for safe memory management. Projects like a language translator and crop simulator tie these topics together. In the final stretch, the focus shifts to data structures. You'll implement both array-based and linked versions of stacks, queues, and lists, and apply templating to create flexible, type-safe data abstractions. By combining theory with hands-on coding, you’ll build a toolkit for solving complex programming problems. By the end of the course, you will be able to apply advanced C++ features like templates and polymorphism, utilize STL containers effectively, manage memory with modern techniques, and implement foundational data structures from scratch.