C++ Library API Design

Posted by johannes on Programmers See other posts from Programmers or by johannes
Published on 2012-09-02T13:28:27Z Indexed on 2012/09/02 15:51 UTC
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I'm looking for a good resource for learning about good API design for C++ libraries, looking at shared objects/dlls etc. There are many resources on writing nice APIs, nice classes, templates and so on at source level, but barely anything about putting things together in shared libs and executables. Books like Large-Scale C++ Software Design by John Lakos are interesting but massively outdated.

What I'm looking for is advice i.e. on handling templates. With templates in my API I often end up with library code in my executable (or other library) so if I fix a bug in there I can't simply roll out the new library but have to recompile and redistribute all clients of that code. (and yes, I know some solutions like trying to instantiate at least the most common versions inside the library etc.)

I'm also looking for other caveats and things to mind for keeping binary compatibility while working on C++ libraries.

Is there a good website or book on such things?

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