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)

Dynamic Containers

A container is a data structure consisting of multiple instances of the same data type. For instance, a C++ array is a simple kind of container. The type of array says what kind of data it contains. An array has a fixed size specified at compile time. A dynamic array is a container that has a fixed type and an arbitrary size, but the size is fixed when the container is created.

Linked Lists

Using dynamic class instances, each containing a single pointer, a program can create a container that can grow to a size that is not predetermined. Each entry in a container is a class (or struct) instance. The class has a payload (a member called value_, an int in the following example) and a pointer member (called next_ in the following example), which refers to the next instance in the container. The class definition looks like this:

struct numeric_item
{
    int value_;
    numeric_item* next_;
};

Dynamically created instances...