Book Image

Beginning C++ Programming

By : Richard Grimes
Book Image

Beginning C++ Programming

By: Richard Grimes

Overview of this book

C++ has come a long way and is now adopted in several contexts. Its key strengths are its software infrastructure and resource-constrained applications, including desktop applications, servers, and performance-critical applications, not to forget its importance in game programming. Despite its strengths in these areas, beginners usually tend to shy away from learning the language because of its steep learning curve. The main mission of this book is to make you familiar and comfortable with C++. You will finish the book not only being able to write your own code, but more importantly, you will be able to read other projects. It is only by being able to read others' code that you will progress from a beginner to an advanced programmer. This book is the first step in that progression. The first task is to familiarize you with the structure of C++ projects so you will know how to start reading a project. Next, you will be able to identify the main structures in the language, functions, and classes, and feel confident being able to identify the execution flow through the code. You will then become aware of the facilities of the standard library and be able to determine whether you need to write a routine yourself, or use an existing routine in the standard library. Throughout the book, there is a big emphasis on memory and pointers. You will understand memory usage, allocation, and access, and be able to write code that does not leak memory. Finally, you will learn about C++ classes and get an introduction to object orientation and polymorphism.
Table of Contents (11 chapters)

Using C++ types

In this final part of the chapter, we will develop a command-line application that allows you to print out the contents of a file in a mixed alphanumeric and hex format.

The application must be run with the name of a file, but optionally you can specify how many lines to print. The application will print on the console the contents of the file, 16 bytes per line. On the left, it gives the hex representation and on the right, it gives the printable representation (or a dot if the character is not in the printable non-extended ASCII range).

Create a new folder under C:\Beginning_C++ called Chapter_03. Start Visual C++ and create a C++ source file, and save it to the folder you just created as hexdump.cpp. Add a simple main function that allows the application to accept parameters, and provides support for input and output using C++ streams:

    #include <iostream...