Book Image

The C++ Workshop

By : Dale Green, Kurt Guntheroth, Shaun Ross Mitchell
Book Image

The C++ Workshop

By: Dale Green, Kurt Guntheroth, Shaun Ross Mitchell

Overview of this book

C++ is the backbone of many games, GUI-based applications, and operating systems. Learning C++ effectively is more than a matter of simply reading through theory, as the real challenge is understanding the fundamentals in depth and being able to use them in the real world. If you're looking to learn C++ programming efficiently, this Workshop is a comprehensive guide that covers all the core features of C++ and how to apply them. It will help you take the next big step toward writing efficient, reliable C++ programs. The C++ Workshop begins by explaining the basic structure of a C++ application, showing you how to write and run your first program to understand data types, operators, variables and the flow of control structures. You'll also see how to make smarter decisions when it comes to using storage space by declaring dynamic variables during program runtime. Moving ahead, you'll use object-oriented programming (OOP) techniques such as inheritance, polymorphism, and class hierarchies to make your code structure organized and efficient. Finally, you'll use the C++ standard library?s built-in functions and templates to speed up different programming tasks. By the end of this C++ book, you will have the knowledge and skills to confidently tackle your own ambitious projects and advance your career as a C++ developer.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)

Introduction

So far, this book has examined several types of variables: integers, characters, floating-point numbers plus arrays and structs composed of these simple types. In previous chapters, you have been introduced to pointers and references. In this chapter, we will look at these variables in greater detail.

A pointer is a variable that points to another variable. Pointers have a type; that is, a pointer to int points to or refers to an int. A pointer to char refers to a char. A pointer to int can be assigned to another pointer to int, but not to a pointer to char. A pointer to class foo refers to an instance of class foo. A pointer can also be the special value nullptr, which means the pointer is not pointing to anything. A reference, which will be discussed in more detail later in this chapter, is a pointer, but with constraints that make it safer to use.

C++ pointers can point to any variable inside any data structure, and can iterate through arrays. To make pointers...