suppu-github/CPPFundamentals-Notebooks

Jupyter Notebooks for Learning Foundational Concepts using C++

C++ Fundamentals

• Jupyter Notebooks for Computer Science Foundational Concepts (CS1) using C++
• some of the contents are based on the open source textbook: Think C++ by Allen B. Downey
  • others are based on https://en.cppreference.com/ and http://cplusplus.com/
• PDF of the textbook can be found at http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkcpp/thinkCScpp.pdf

PDF Format

• each notebook chapter is converted into pdf format and found in pdfs folder

System Requirements

• Linux/MacOS/WSL on Windows (not tested on Windows itself)
• Jupyter Notebook
• xeus-cling notebook kernel to run C++ code in Jupyter
• git client
• G++ compiler
• VS Code

Install required tools

• Note: these libraries and tools need to be installed just once, if you've Jupyter Notebook with C++, you can safely ignore this section

• git client is already available on Mac and Linux

• install Miniconda: https://conda.io/miniconda.html

• open a terminal/shell and run the following commands

• create a virual environment to keep C++ specific installtions seperate from base installation

    conda create -n cpp python=3.7 # create virtual env named cpp with Python3.7 support
    conda activate cpp #activate the virual environemnt
    conda install notebook
    conda install -c conda-forge xeus-cling
    conda install -c conda-forge jupyter_contrib_nbextensions
    conda install -c conda-forge jupyter_nbextensions_configurator
    jupyter nbextensions_configurator enable --user

Run or Use notebooks natively

• clone the repository locally once the tools are installed
• open a terminal and cd into this cloned repo and run jupyter notebook

    cd <CPP Fundamentals repo folder>
    conda activate cpp
    jupyter notebook

• Enter ctrl+c to stop jupyter notebook from the terminal where its running from
• $ conda deactivate # to deactivate the virtual env and go back to base installation

Run notebooks using VS Code

• alternatively, VS Code can be used to load and execute notebooks
• VS Code will help you find the right plugins if missing to render and execute notebooks

Demo programs and sample solutions

• Jupyter Notebook doesn't run complete C++ program with main()
• complete demo programs and example solutions are provided in demo_programs folder
• these programs need to be compiled using any C++ compiler (with C++11 or newer standandard)

Compiling and running C++ programs with g++

• open a terminal and run the following commands
• cd into a chapter with with sample program; compile and run the program

   cd demo_programs/Ch...
   g++ -std=c++17 -o programName inputFile.cpp
   ./programName

Compiling and running C++ programs with VS Code

• install C/C++ plugins for VS Code
• open integreted terminal: View -> Terminal and follow the commands above
• you can also click run button on the top right corner for some programs, but not recommended for many programs that are interactive