FAQ 30.01 What is the purpose of this chapter?

The purpose of this chapter is to show you how to eliminate a nasty category of bugs from your software. The bugs discussed in this chapter are quite subtle the compiler normally does not give any warning or error messages and disastrous, often causing the application to crash or behave chaotically.

The specific details involve three infrastructure routines that the C++ compiler automatically defines when the developer leaves them undefined. A guideline is provided so readers can tell when those automatic definitions will cause problems and when they won't cause problems.

It is essential that every C++ programmer understand the material in this chapter.