Memory Thinking for C & C++ Windows Diagnostics
Memory Thinking for C & C++ Windows Diagnostics
Slides with Descriptions and Source Code Illustrations, Second Edition
About the Book
Solid C and C++ knowledge is a must to fully understand Windows diagnostic artifacts such as memory dumps and do diagnostic, forensic, and root cause analysis beyond listing stack traces, DLL, and driver information. This full-color reference book is a part of the Accelerated C & C++ for Windows Diagnostics training course organized by Software Diagnostics Services. The text contains slides, brief notes highlighting particular points, and illustrative source code fragments. The second edition added 45 Visual Studio projects with more than 5,500 lines of code. The book's detailed Table of Contents makes the usual Index redundant. We hope this reference is helpful for the following audiences:
- C and C++ developers who want to deepen their knowledge
- Software engineers developing and maintaining products on Windows platforms
- Technical support, escalation, DevSecOps, cloud and site reliability engineers dealing with complex software issues
- Quality assurance engineers who test software on Windows platforms
- Security and vulnerability researchers, reverse engineers, malware and memory forensics analysts
About the Author
Bundles that include this book
Table of Contents
Preface 10
About the Author 11
Introduction 12
Original Training Course Name 12
Prerequisites 12
Training Goals 13
Training Principles 13
Schedule 14
Training Idea 14
Version 2.0 Idea 15
General C & C++ Aspects 15
What We Do Not Cover 17
Windows C & C++ Aspects 17
Why C & C++? 18
Which C & C++? 19
My History of C & C++ 19
C and C++ Mastery Process 20
Thought Process 21
Philosophy of Pointers 21
Pointer 22
Pointer Dereference 22
One to Many 23
Many to One 23
Many to One Dereference 24
Invalid Pointer 24
Invalid Pointer Dereference 25
Wild (Dangling) Pointer 25
Pointer to Pointer 26
Pointer to Pointer Dereference 26
Naming Pointers and Entities 27
Names as Pointer Content 27
Pointers as Entities 28
Pointer Code Examples 29
Warning 30
Pointer 30
* Placement Style 32
Pointer Dereference 32
One to Many 34
Memory Leak 35
Many to One 37
Many to One Dereference 39
Invalid Pointer 40
Invalid Pointer Dereference 42
Wild (Dangling) Pointer 43
Pointer to Pointer 45
Pointer to Pointer Dereference 47
Undefined Behavior 48
Memory and Pointers 49
Mental Exercise 50
Debugger Memory Layout 50
Memory Dereference Layout 51
Names as Addresses 51
Addresses and Entities 52
Addresses and Structures 52
Pointers to Structures 53
Arrays 53
Arrays and Pointers to Arrays 54
Strings and Pointers to Strings 55
Basic Types 57
ASCII Characters and Pointers 58
Bytes and Pointers 59
Wide Characters and Pointers 60
Integers 61
Long Integers 62
Little-Endian System 63
Short Integers 64
Long Long Integers 65
Signed and Unsigned Integers 66
Fixed Size Integers 67
Booleans 68
Bytes 69
Size 70
Alignment (C11) 71
Alignment (C++11) 72
LLP64 73
Nothing and Anything 74
Automatic Type Inference 75
Entity Conversion 76
Pointer Conversion (C-Style) 77
Pointer Conversion (C++) 78
Numeric Promotion/Conversion 79
Numeric Conversion 80
Incompatible Types 81
Forcing 82
Uniting 83
Structures, Classes, and Objects 85
Structures 86
Access Level 87
Classes and Objects 88
Structures and Classes 89
Pointer to Structure 90
Pointer to Structure Dereference 91
One to Many 92
Memory Leak 94
Many Pointers to One Structure 96
Many to One Dereference 97
Invalid Pointer to Structure 99
Invalid Pointer Dereference 101
Wild (Dangling) Pointer 102
Pointer to Pointer to Structure 105
Pointer to Pointer Dereference 106
Memory and Structures 108
Addresses and Structures 109
Structure Field Access 110
Pointers to Structures 112
Pointers to Structure Fields 113
Structure Inheritance 116
Structure Slicing 117
Inheritance Access Level 118
Structures and Classes II 119
Internal Structure Alignment 120
Static Structure Fields 121
Uniform Initialization 123
Old Initialization Ways 124
New Way {} 125
Uniform Structure Initialization 126
Static Field Initialization 128
Macros, Types, and Synonyms 129
Macros 130
Old Way 131
New Way 132
Enumerations 133
Old Way 134
New Way 135
Memory Storage 137
Overview 138
Memory Regions 138
Dynamic Virtual Memory 139
Static Memory 139
Stack Memory 140
Thread Stack Frames 140
Local Variable Value Lifecycle 141
Scope 142
Stack Allocation Pitfalls 143
Explicit Local Allocation 145
Heap Memory 146
Dynamic Allocation (C-style) 147
Dynamic Allocation (C++) 147
Memory Expressions 148
Memory Operators 148
Local Pointers (Manual) 151
In-place Allocation 152
Useful WinDbg Commands 153
Source Code Organisation` 154
Logical Layer (Translation Units) 155
Physical Layer (Source Files) 155
Inter-TU Sharing 156
Classic Static TU Isolation 156
Namespace TU Isolation 157
Declaration and Definition 157
TU Definition Conflicts 158
Fine-grained TU Scope Isolation 159
Conceptual Layer (Design) 160
Incomplete Types 160
References 163
Type& vs. Type* 164
Values 165
Value Categories 166
Constant Values 167
Constant Expressions 168
Functions 169
Macro Functions 170
constexpr Functions 171
Pointers to Functions 172
Function Pointer Types 173
Reading Declarations 174
Structure Function Fields 175
Structure Methods 176
Structure Methods (Inlined) 177
Structure Methods (Inheritance) 178
Structure Virtual Methods 179
Structure Pure Virtual Methods 182
Structure as Interface 184
Function Structure 186
Structure Constructors 187
Structure Converting Constructors 188
Structure Delegating Constructors 189
Structure Member Initialization 191
Structure Copy Constructor 192
Copy vs. Move Semantics 193
Structure Move Constructors 193
Structure Copy Assignment 195
Structure Move Assignment 196
Structure Destructor 198
Structure Destructor Hierarchy 199
Structure Virtual Destructor 200
Structure Member Destruction 202
Destructor as a Method 203
Structure Default Operations 204
Structure Deleted Operations 205
Conversion Operators 207
Parameters by Value 208
Parameters by Pointer/Reference 210
Parameters by Ptr/Ref to Const 212
Parameters by Ref to Rvalue 214
Possible Mistake 215
Function Overloading 215
Default Arguments 216
Variadic Functions 217
Immutable Objects 218
Static Structure Functions 219
Lambdas 220
x64 CPU Registers 220
Instructions and Registers 221
Memory and Stack Addressing 221
Memory Cell Sizes 222
Memory Load Instructions 222
Memory Store Instructions 223
Flow Instructions 223
Function Parameters 224
Struct Function Parameters 224
this 225
Function Objects vs. Lambdas 226
Captures and Closures 227
Lambdas as Parameters 228
Lambda Parameter Optimization 229
Lambdas as Unnamed Functions 230
std::function Lambda Parameters 231
auto Lambda Parameters 232
Lambdas as Return Values 233
Virtual Function Call 234
VTBL Memory Layout 235
VPTR and Struct Memory Layout 235
Templates: A Planck-length Introduction 237
Why Templates? 238
Reusability 238
Types of Templates 239
Types of Template Parameters 240
Type Safety 241
Flexibility 242
Metafunctions 243
Variadic Templates 244
Iterators as Pointers 245
Containers 246
Iterators 246
Constant Iterators 247
Pointers as Iterators 248
Algorithms 249
Memory Ownership 251
Pointers as Owners 252
Problems with Pointer Owners 252
Smart Pointers 253
Basic Design 254
Unique Pointers 254
Handles as Unique Pointers 255
Shared Pointers 256
RAII 258
RAII Definition 259
RAII Advantages 259
Handle RAII 260
Threads and Synchronization 262
Threads in C/C++ 263
Threads in C++ Proper 264
Synchronization Problems 265
Synchronization Solution 266
Memory-safe C++ Development 267
URSS Principle 267
Resources 268
C and C++ 268
Reading Windows-based Code 269
Windows (C and C++) 270
Training (Windows C and C++) 271
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