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)

Unions

Classes and structs store data members in separate chunks of memory, while union types only allocate enough memory to store the largest data member. All members of a union share the same memory location; consequently, one chunk of allocated memory can be used to access different data types if they were to be laid out the same in memory. Unions are a data type that you don't see a lot of, but it is worth having some understanding of how they work. One useful advantage is being able to read data in one format and then access it in another.

The following example shows a union type called Backpack. This has an array of four integers and a struct named data that has four int members. Look closely at how the data can be set and read using both the array and the struct:

Example08_1.cpp

1  #include <iostream>
2  
3  using namespace std;
4  
5  union Backpack
6  {
7      ...