Loki

The book describes an actual C++ library called Loki. Loki is the god of wit and mischief in Norse mythology, and the author's hope is that the library's originality and flexibility will remind readers of the playful Norse god. All the elements of the library live in the namespace Loki. The namespace is not mentioned in the coding examples because it would have unnecessarily increased indentation and the size of the examples. Loki is freely available; you can download it from http://www.awl.com/cseng/titles/0-201-70431-5.

Except for its threading part, Loki is written exclusively in standard C++. This, alas, means that many current compilers cannot cope with parts of it. I implemented and tested Loki using Metrowerks' CodeWarrior Pro 6.0 and Comeau C++ 4.2.38, both on Windows. It is likely that KAI C++ wouldn't have any problem with the code, either. As vendors release new, better compiler versions, you will be able to exploit everything Loki has to offer.

Loki's code and the code samples presented throughout the book use a popular coding standard originated by Herb Sutter. I'm sure you will pick it up easily. In a nutshell,

• Classes, functions, and enumerated types look LikeThis.

• Variables and enumerated values look likeThis.

• Member variables look likeThis_.

• Template parameters are declared with class if they can be only a user-defined type, and with typename if they can also be a primitive type.