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)

Vectors-Handy, Resizable Arrays

Vectors implement a multi-purpose dynamic array. Remember that C++ arrays must be a fixed size; we cannot resize an array, and will have to create new arrays and copy the contents if we need to add another element. We have been doing this a lot in custom classes that we have created throughout this course. Vectors allow us to create a container that can be resized whenever we need it. The elements in a vector are stored contiguously—that is, laid out in a neighboring fashion—and therefore can be accessed through offsetting pointers to elements as well as iterators. We can make use of vectors by including the <vector> header.

Vector Constructors

Vectors give us a number of different constructors to use when we want to create a new vector. A selection of these constructors are outlined here:

  • vector();: Constructs an empty vector.
  • vector(size_t n, const T& value = T());: Constructs a vector with a number of elements...