C++ SOURCE CODE TUTORIALS
Make Program
Probably the best way to start learning a programming language is by writing a program. Therefore, here is our first program:
// my first program in C++
#include
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
cout << “Hello TechPreparation!”; return 0; } Hello TechPreparation! The first panel shows the source code for our first program. The second one shows the result of the program once compiled and executed. The way to edit and compile a program depends on the compiler you are using. Depending on whether it has a Development Interface or not and on its version. Consult the compilers section and the manual or help included with your compiler if you have doubts on how to compile a C++ console program. The previous program is the typical program that programmer apprentices write for the first time, and its result is the printing on screen of the “Hello TechPreparation!” sentence. It is one of the simplest programs that can be written in C++, but it already contains the fundamental components that every C++ program has. We are going to look line by line at the code we have just written: // my first program in C++ This is a comment line. All lines beginning with two slash signs (//) are considered comments and do not have any effect on the behavior of the program. The programmer can use them to include short explanations or observations within the source code itself. In this case, the line is a brief description of what our program is. #include
Lines beginning with a pound sign (#) are directives for the preprocessor. They are not regular code lines with expressions but indications for the compiler’s preprocessor. In this case the directive #includetells the preprocessor to include the iostream standard file. This specific file (iostream) includes the declarations of the basic standard input-output library in C++, and it is included because its functionality is going to be used later in the program.
using namespace std;
All the elements of the standard C++ library are declared within what is called a namespace, the namespace with the name std. So in order to access its functionality we declare with this expression that we will be using these entities. This line is very frequent in C++ programs that use the standard library, and in fact it will be included in most of the source codes included in these tutorials.
int main ()
This line corresponds to the beginning of the definition of the main function. The main function is the point by where all C++ programs start their execution, independently of its location within the source code. It does not matter whether there are other functions with other names defined before or after it – the instructions contained within this function’s definition will always be the first ones to be executed in any C++ program. For that same reason, it is essential that all C++ programs have a main function.
The word main is followed in the code by a pair of parentheses (()). That is because it is a function declaration: In C++, what differentiates a function declaration from other types of expressions are these parentheses that follow its name. Optionally, these parentheses may enclose a list of parameters within them.
Right after these parentheses we can find the body of the main function enclosed in braces ({}). What is contained within these braces is what the function does when it is executed.
cout << “Hello TechPreparation”; This line is a C++ statement. A statement is a simple or compound expression that can actually produce some effect. In fact, this statement performs the only action that generates a visible effect in our first program. cout represents the standard output stream in C++, and the meaning of the entire statement is to insert a sequence of characters (in this case the Hello TechPreparation sequence of characters) into the standard output stream (which usually is the screen). cout is declared in the iostream standard file within the std namespace, so that’s why we needed to include that specific file and to declare that we were going to use this specific namespace earlier in our code. Notice that the statement ends with a semicolon character (;). This character is used to mark the end of the statement and in fact it must be included at the end of all expression statements in all C++ programs (one of the most common syntax errors is indeed to forget to include some semicolon after a statement). return 0; The return statement causes the main function to finish. return may be followed by a return code (in our example is followed by the return code 0). A return code of 0 for the main function is generally interpreted as the program worked as expected without any errors during its execution. This is the most usual way to end a C++ console program. You may have noticed that not all the lines of this program perform actions when the code is executed. There were lines containing only comments (those beginning by //). There were lines with directives for the compiler’s preprocessor (those beginning by #). Then there were lines that began the declaration of a function (in this case, the main function) and, finally lines with statements (like the insertion into cout), which were all included within the block delimited by the braces ({}) of the main function. The program has been structured in different lines in order to be more readable, but in C++, we do not have strict rules on how to separate instructions in different lines. For example, instead of int main () { cout << “Hello TechPreparation “; return 0; } We could have written: int main () { cout << “Hello TechPreparation”; return 0; } All in just one line and this would have had exactly the same meaning as the previous code. In C++, the separation between statements is specified with an ending semicolon (;) at the end of each one, so the separation in different code lines does not matter at all for this purpose. We can write many statements per line or write a single statement that takes many code lines. The division of code in different lines serves only to make it more legible and schematic for the humans that may read it. Let us add an additional instruction to our first program: // my second program in C++ #include
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
cout << “Hello TechPreparation! “; cout << “I’m a C++ program”; return 0; } Hello TechPreparation! I’m a C++ program In this case, we performed two insertions into cout in two different statements. Once again, the separation in different lines of code has been done just to give greater readability to the program, since main could have been perfectly valid defined this way: int main () { cout << ” Hello TechPreparation! “; cout << ” I’m a C++ program “; return 0; } We were also free to divide the code into more lines if we considered it more convenient: int main () { cout << “Hello TechPreparation!”; cout << “I’m a C++ program”; return 0; } And the result would again have been exactly the same as in the previous examples. Preprocessor directives (those that begin by #) are out of this general rule since they are not statements. They are lines read and processed by the preprocessor and do not produce any code by themselves. Preprocessor directives must be specified in their own line and do not have to end with a semicolon (;). Comments Comments are parts of the source code disregarded by the compiler. They simply do nothing. Their purpose is only to allow the programmer to insert notes or descriptions embedded within the source code. C++ supports two ways to insert comments: // line comment /* block comment */ The first of them, known as line comment, discards everything from where the pair of slash signs (//) is found up to the end of that same line. The second one, known as block comment, discards everything between the /* characters and the first appearance of the */ characters, with the possibility of including more than one line. We are going to add comments to our second program: /* my second program in C++ with more comments */ #include
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
cout << “Hello TechPreparation! “; // prints Hello TechPreparation! cout << “I’m a C++ program”; // prints I’m a C++ program return 0; } Hello TechPreparation! I’m a C++ program If you include comments within the source code of your programs without using the comment characters combinations //, /* or */, the compiler will take them as if they were C++ expressions, most likely causing one or several error messages when you compile it. Variables. Data Types. The usefulness of the “Hello TechPreparation” programs shown in the previous section is quite questionable. We had to write several lines of code, compile them, and then execute the resulting program just to obtain a simple sentence written on the screen as result. It certainly would have been much faster to type the output sentence by ourselves. However, programming is not limited only to printing simple texts on the screen. In order to go a little further on and to become able to write programs that perform useful tasks that really save us work we need to introduce the concept of variable. Let us think that I ask you to retain the number 5 in your mental memory, and then I ask you to memorize also the number 2 at the same time. You have just stored two different values in your memory. Now, if I ask you to add 1 to the first number I said, you should be retaining the numbers 6 (that is 5+1) and 2 in your memory. Values that we could now for example subtract and obtain 4 as result. The whole process that you have just done with your mental memory is a simile of what a computer can do with two variables. The same process can be expressed in C++ with the following instruction set: a = 5; b = 2; a = a + 1; result = a – b; Obviously, this is a very simple example since we have only used two small integer values, but consider that your computer can store millions of numbers like these at the same time and conduct sophisticated mathematical operations with them. Therefore, we can define a variable as a portion of memory to store a determined value. Each variable needs an identifier that distinguishes it from the others, for example, in the previous code the variable identifiers were a, b and result, but we could have called the variables any names we wanted to invent, as long as they were valid identifiers. Identifiers A valid identifier is a sequence of one or more letters, digits or underscore characters (_). Neither spaces nor punctuation marks or symbols can be part of an identifier. Only letters, digits and single underscore characters are valid. In addition, variable identifiers always have to begin with a letter. They can also begin with an underline character (_ ), but in some cases these may be reserved for compiler specific keywords or external identifiers, as well as identifiers containing two successive underscore characters anywhere. In no case they can begin with a digit. Another rule that you have to consider when inventing your own identifiers is that they cannot match any keyword of the C++ language nor your compiler’s specific ones, which are reserved keywords. The standard reserved keywords are: asm, auto, bool, break, case, catch, char, class, const, const_cast, continue, default, delete, do, double, dynamic_cast, else, enum, explicit, export, extern, false, float, for, friend, goto, if, inline, int, long, mutable, namespace, new, operator, private, protected, public, register, reinterpret_cast, return, short, signed, sizeof, static, static_cast, struct, switch, template, this, throw, true, try, typedef, typeid, typename, union, unsigned, using, virtual, void, volatile, wchar_t, while Additionally, alternative representations for some operators cannot be used as identifiers since they are reserved words under some circumstances: and, and_eq, bitand, bitor, compl, not, not_eq, or, or_eq, xor, xor_eq Your compiler may also include some additional specific reserved keywords. Very important: The C++ language is a “case sensitive” language. That means that an identifier written in capital letters is not equivalent to another one with the same name but written in small letters. Thus, for example, the RESULT variable is not the same as the result variable or the Result variable. These are three different variable identifiers. Name Description Size* Range* char Character or small integer. 1byte signed: -128 to 127 unsigned: 0 to 255 short int (short) Short Integer. 2bytes signed: -32768 to 32767 unsigned: 0 to 65535 int Integer. 4bytes signed: -2147483648 to 2147483647 unsigned: 0 to 4294967295 long int (long) Long integer. 1byte signed: -2147483648 to 2147483647 unsigned: 0 to 4294967295 bool Boolean value. It can take one of two values: true or false. 1byte true or false float Floating point number. 4bytes 3.4e +/- 38 (7 digits) double Double precision floating point number. 8bytes 1.7e +/- 308 (15 digits) long double Long double precision floating point number. 8bytes 1.7e +/- 308 (15 digits) wchar_t Wide character. 2bytes 1 wide character * The values of the columns Size and Range depend on the system the program is compiled for. The values shown above are those found on most 32-bit systems. But for other systems, the general specification is that int has the natural size suggested by the system architecture (one “word”) and the four integer types char, short, int and long must each one be at least as large as the one preceding it, with char being always 1 byte in size. The same applies to the floating point types float, double and long double, where each one must provide at least as much precision as the preceding one. Declaration of variables In order to use a variable in C++, we must first declare it specifying which data type we want it to be. The syntax to declare a new variable is to write the specifier of the desired data type (like int, bool, float…) followed by a valid variable identifier. For example: int a; float mynumber; These are two valid declarations of variables. The first one declares a variable of type int with the identifier a. The second one declares a variable of type float with the identifier mynumber. Once declared, the variables a and mynumber can be used within the rest of their scope in the program. If you are going to declare more than one variable of the same type, you can declare all of them in a single statement by separating their identifiers with commas. For example: int a, b, c; This declares three variables (a, b and c), all of them of type int, and has exactly the same meaning as: int a; int b; int c; The integer data types char, short, long and int can be either signed or unsigned depending on the range of numbers needed to be represented. Signed types can represent both positive and negative values, whereas unsigned types can only represent positive values (and zero). This can be specified by using either the specifier signed or the specifier unsigned before the type name. For example: unsigned short int NumberOfSisters; signed int MyAccountBalance; By default, if we do not specify either signed or unsigned most compiler settings will assume the type to be signed, therefore instead of the second declaration above we could have written: int MyAccountBalance; with exactly the same meaning (with or without the keyword signed) An exception to this general rule is the char type, which exists by itself and is considered a different fundamental data type from signed char and unsigned char, thought to store characters. You should use either signed or unsigned if you intend to store numerical values in a char-sized variable. short and long can be used alone as type specifiers. In this case, they refer to their respective integer fundamental types: short is equivalent to short int and long is equivalent to long int. The following two variable declarations are equivalent: short Year; short int Year; Finally, signed and unsigned may also be used as standalone type specifiers, meaning the same as signed int and unsigned int respectively. The following two declarations are equivalent: unsigned NextYear; unsigned int NextYear; To see what variable declarations look like in action within a program, we are going to see the C++ code of the example about your mental memory proposed at the beginning of this section: // operating with variables #include
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
// declaring variables:
int a, b;
int result;
// process:
a = 5;
b = 2;
a = a + 1;
result = a – b;
// print out the result:
cout << identifier =" initial_value" a =" 0;">
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
int a=5; // initial value = 5
int b(2); // initial value = 2
int result; // initial value undetermined
a = a + 3;
result = a – b;
cout <<>and have access to the std namespace (which we already had in all our previous programs thanks to the using namespace statement).
// my first string
#include
#include
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
string mystring = “This is a string”;
cout << mystring =" “This">
#include
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
string mystring;
mystring = “This is the initial string content”;
cout << mystring =" “This" a =" 5;">
using namespace std;
#define PI 3.14159
#define NEWLINE ‘n’
int main ()
{
double r=5.0; // radius
double circle;
circle = 2 * PI * r;
cout << pathwidth =" 100;" tabulator =" ‘t’;" a =" 5;" a =" b;">
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
int a, b; // a:?, b:?
a = 10; // a:10, b:?
b = 4; // a:10, b:4
a = b; // a:4, b:4
b = 7; // a:4, b:7
cout << “a:”; cout << a =" b" a =" 2" b =" 5);" b =" 5;" a =" 2" a =" b" c =" 5;" a =" 11">>=, <<=, &=, ^=, |=) When we want to modify the value of a variable by performing an operation on the value currently stored in that variable we can use compound assignment operators: expression is equivalent to value += increase; value = value + increase; a -= 5; a = a – 5; a /= b; a = a / b; price *= units + 1; price = price * (units + 1); and the same for all other operators. For example: // compound assignment operators #include
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
int a, b=3;
a = b;
a+=2; // equivalent to a=a+2
cout << c="c+1;" b="3;" a="++B;" b="3;" a="B++;">, <, >=, <= ) In order to evaluate a comparison between two expressions we can use the relational and equality operators. The result of a relational operation is a Boolean value that can only be true or false, according to its Boolean result. We may want to compare two expressions, for example, to know if they are equal or if one is greater than the other is. Here is a list of the relational and equality operators that can be used in C++: == Equal to != Not equal to > Greater than
<>= Greater than or equal to
<= Less than or equal to Here there are some examples: (7 == 5) // evaluates to false. (5 > 4) // evaluates to true.
(3 != 2) // evaluates to true.
(6 >= 6) // evaluates to true.
(5 < a="2," b="3" c="6," a ="="">= c) // evaluates to true since (2*3 >= 6) is true.
(b+4 > a*c) // evaluates to false since (3+4 > 2*6) is false.
((b=2) == a) // evaluates to true.
Be careful! The operator = (one equal sign) is not the same as the operator == (two equal signs), the first one is an assignment operator (assigns the value at its right to the variable at its left) and the other one (==) is the equality operator that compares whether both expressions in the two sides of it are equal to each other. Thus, in the last expression ((b=2) == a), we first assigned the value 2 to b and then we compared it to a, that also stores the value 2, so the result of the operation is true.
Logical operators ( !, &&, || )
The Operator ! is the C++ operator to perform the Boolean operation NOT, it has only one operand, located at its right, and the only thing that it does is to inverse the value of it, producing false if its operand is true and true if its operand is false. Basically, it returns the opposite Boolean value of evaluating its operand. For example:
!(5 == 5) // evaluates to false because the expression at its right (5 == 5) is true.
!(6 <= 4) // evaluates to true because (6 <= 4) would be false. !true // evaluates to false !false // evaluates to true. The logical operators && and || are used when evaluating two expressions to obtain a single relational result. The operator && corresponds with Boolean logical operation AND. This operation results true if both its two operands are true, and false otherwise. The following panel shows the result of operator && evaluating the expression a && b: && OPERATOR a b a&b true true false false true false true false true false false false The operator || corresponds with Boolean logical operation OR. This operation results true if either one of its two operands is true, thus being false only when both operands are false themselves. Here are the possible results of a || b: a b a || b true true false false true false true false true true true false For example: ( (5 == 5) && (3 > 6) ) // evaluates to false ( true && false ).
( (5 == 5) || (3 > 6) ) // evaluates to true ( true || false ).
Conditional operator ( ? )
The conditional operator evaluates an expression returning a value if that expression is true and a different one if the expression is evaluated as false. Its format is:
condition ? result1 : result2
If condition is true the expression will return result1, if it is not it will return result2.
7==5 ? 4 : 3 // returns 3, since 7 is not equal to 5.
7==5+2 ? 4 : 3 // returns 4, since 7 is equal to 5+2.
5>3 ? a : b // returns the value of a, since 5 is greater than 3.
a>b ? a : b // returns whichever is greater, a or b.
// conditional operator
#include
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
int a,b,c;
a=2;
b=7;
c = (a>b) ? a : b;
cout <<>b) was not true, thus the first value specified after the question mark was discarded in favor of the second value (the one after the colon) which was b, with a value of 7.
Comma operator ( , )
The comma operator (,) is used to separate two or more expressions that are included where only one expression is expected. When the set of expressions has to be evaluated for a value, only the rightmost expression is considered.
For example, the following code:
a = (b=3, b+2);
Would first assign the value 3 to b, and then assign b+2 to variable a. So, at the end, variable a would contain the value 5 while variable b would contain value 3.
Bitwise Operators ( &, |, ^, ~, <<, >> )
Bitwise operators modify variables considering the bit patterns that represent the values they store.
operator asm equivalent description
&
|
^
~
<< >> AND
OR
XOR
NOT
SHL
SHR Bitwise AND
Bitwise Inclusive OR
Bitwise Exclusive OR
Unary complement (bit inversion)
Shift Left
Shift Right
Explicit type casting operator
Type casting operators allow you to convert a datum of a given type to another. There are several ways to do this in C++. The simplest one, which has been inherited from the C language, is to precede the expression to be converted by the new type enclosed between parentheses (()):
int i;
float f = 3.14;
i = (int) f;
The previous code converts the float number 3.14 to an integer value (3), the remainder is lost. Here, the typecasting operator was (int). Another way to do the same thing in C++ is using the functional notation: preceding the expression to be converted by the type and enclosing the expression between parentheses:
i = int ( f );
Both ways of type casting are valid in C++.
sizeof()
This operator accepts one parameter, which can be either a type or a variable itself and returns the size in bytes of that type or object:
a = sizeof (char);
This will assign the value 1 to a because char is a one-byte long type.
The value returned by sizeof is a constant, so it is always determined before program execution.
Other operators
Later in these tutorials, we will see a few more operators, like the ones referring to pointers or the specifics for object-oriented programming. Each one is treated in its respective section.
Precedence of operators
When writing complex expressions with several operands, we may have some doubts about which operand is evaluated first and which later. For example, in this expression:
a = 5 + 7 % 2
we may doubt if it really means:
a = 5 + (7 % 2) // with a result of 6, or
a = (5 + 7) % 2 // with a result of 0
The correct answer is the first of the two expressions, with a result of 6. There is an established order with the priority of each operator, and not only the arithmetic ones (those whose preference come from mathematics) but for all the operators which can appear in C++. From greatest to lowest priority, the priority order is as follows:
Level Operator Description Grouping
1 :: scope Left-to-right
2 () [] . -> ++ — dynamic_cast static_cast reinterpret_cast const_cast typeid postfix Left-to-right
3 ++ — ~ ! sizeof new delete unary (prefix) Right-to-left
* & indirection and reference (pointers)
+ - unary sign operator
4 (type) type casting Right-to-left
5 .* ->* pointer-to-member Left-to-right
6 * / % multiplicative Left-to-right
7 + - additive Left-to-right
8 << >> shift Left-to-right
9 < > <= >= relational Left-to-right
10 == != equality Left-to-right
11 & bitwise AND Left-to-right
12 ^ bitwise XOR Left-to-right
13 | bitwise OR Left-to-right
14 && logical AND Left-to-right
15 || logical OR Left-to-right
16 ?: conditional Right-to-left
17 = *= /= %= += -= >>= <<= &= ^= != assignment Right-to-left 18 , comma Left-to-right Grouping defines the precedence order in which operators are evaluated in the case that there are several operators of the same level in an expression. All these precedence levels for operators can be manipulated or become more legible by removing possible ambiguities using parentheses signs ( and ), as in this example: a = 5 + 7 % 2; might be written either as: a = 5 + (7 % 2); or a = (5 + 7) % 2; depending on the operation that we want to perform. So if you want to write complicated expressions and you are not completely sure of the precedence levels, always include parentheses. It will also become a code easier to read. Basic Input/Output Until now, the example programs of previous sections provided very little interaction with the user, if any at all. Using the standard input and output library, we will be able to interact with the user by printing messages on the screen and getting the user’s input from the keyboard. C++ uses a convenient abstraction called streams to perform input and output operations in sequential media such as the screen or the keyboard. A stream is an object where a program can either insert or extract characters to/from it. We do not really need to care about many specifications about the physical media associated with the stream – we only need to know it will accept or provide characters sequentially. The standard C++ library includes the header file iostream, where the standard input and output stream objects are declared. Standard Output (cout) By default, the standard output of a program is the screen, and the C++ stream object defined to access it is cout. cout is used in conjunction with the insertion operator, which is written as << (two “less than” signs). cout << “Output sentence”; // prints Output sentence on screen cout <<>>) on the cin stream. The operator must be followed by the variable that will store the data that is going to be extracted from the stream. For example:
int age;
cin >> age;
The first statement declares a variable of type int called age, and the second one waits for an input from cin (the keyboard) in order to store it in this integer variable.
cin can only process the input from the keyboard once the RETURN key has been pressed. Therefore, even if you request a single character, the extraction from cin will not process the input until the user presses RETURN after the character has been introduced.
You must always consider the type of the variable that you are using as a container with cin extractions. If you request an integer you will get an integer, if you request a character you will get a character and if you request a string of characters you will get a string of characters.
// i/o example
#include
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
int i;
cout << “Please enter an integer value: “; cin >> i;
cout << “The value you entered is ” <<>> a >> b;
is equivalent to:
cin >> a;
cin >> b;
In both cases the user must give two data, one for variable a and another one for variable b that may be separated by any valid blank separator: a space, a tab character or a newline.
cin and strings
We can use cin to get strings with the extraction operator (>>) as we do with fundamental data type variables:
cin >> mystring;
However, as it has been said, cin extraction stops reading as soon as if finds any blank space character, so in this case we will be able to get just one word for each extraction. This behavior may or may not be what we want; for example if we want to get a sentence from the user, this extraction operation would not be useful.
In order to get entire lines, we can use the function getline, which is the more recommendable way to get user input with cin:
// cin with strings
#include
#include
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
string mystr;
cout << “What’s your name? “; getline (cin, mystr); cout << “Hello ” <<>defines a class called stringstream that allows a string-based object to be treated as a stream. This way we can perform extraction or insertion operations from/to strings, which is especially useful to convert strings to numerical values and vice versa. For example, if we want to extract an integer from a string we can write:
string mystr (“1204″);
int myint;
stringstream(mystr) >> myint;
This declares a string object with a value of “1204″, and an int object. Then we use stringstream’s constructor to construct an object of this type from the string object. Because we can use stringstream objects as if they were streams, we can extract an integer from it as we would have done on cin by applying the extractor operator (>>) on it followed by a variable of type int.
After this piece of code, the variable myint will contain the numerical value 1204.
// stringstreams
#include
#include
#include
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
string mystr;
float price=0;
int quantity=0;
cout << “Enter price: “; getline (cin,mystr); stringstream(mystr) >> price;
cout << “Enter quantity: “; getline (cin,mystr); stringstream(mystr) >> quantity;
cout << “Total price: ” << x ="="" x ="="" x ="=""> 0)
cout << “x is positive”; else if (x <>
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
int n;
cout << “Enter the starting number > “;
cin >> n;
while (n>0) {
cout <<> 8
8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, FIRE!
When the program starts the user is prompted to insert a starting number for the countdown. Then the while loop begins, if the value entered by the user fulfills the condition n>0 (that n is greater than zero) the block that follows the condition will be executed and repeated while the condition (n>0) remains being true.
The whole process of the previous program can be interpreted according to the following script (beginning in main):
1. User assigns a value to n
2. The while condition is checked (n>0). At this point there are two posibilities:
* condition is true: statement is executed (to step 3)
* condition is false: ignore statement and continue after it (to step 5)
3. Execute statement:
cout <<>0) to become false after a certain number of loop iterations: to be more specific, when n becomes 0, that is where our while-loop and our countdown end.
Of course this is such a simple action for our computer that the whole countdown is performed instantly without any practical delay between numbers.
The do-while loop
Its format is:
do statement while (condition);
Its functionality is exactly the same as the while loop, except that condition in the do-while loop is evaluated after the execution of statement instead of before, granting at least one execution of statement even if condition is never fulfilled. For example, the following example program echoes any number you enter until you enter 0.
// number echoer
#include
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
unsigned long n;
do {
cout << “Enter number (0 to end): “; cin >> n;
cout << “You entered: ” <<>
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
for (int n=10; n>0; n–) {
cout << n="0," i="100">
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
int n;
for (n=10; n>0; n–)
{
cout << n="="3)">
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
for (int n=10; n>0; n–) {
if (n==5) continue;
cout <<>
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
int n=10;
loop:
cout <<>0) goto loop;
cout << “FIRE!n”; return 0; } 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, FIRE! The exit function exit is a function defined in the cstdlib library. The purpose of exit is to terminate the current program with a specific exit code. Its prototype is: void exit (int exitcode); The exitcode is used by some operating systems and may be used by calling programs. By convention, an exit code of 0 means that the program finished normally and any other value means that some error or unexpected results happened. The selective structure: switch. The syntax of the switch statement is a bit peculiar. Its objective is to check several possible constant values for an expression. Something similar to what we did at the beginning of this section with the concatenation of several if and else if instructions. Its form is the following: switch (expression) { case constant1: group of statements 1; break; case constant2: group of statements 2; break; . . . default: default group of statements } It works in the following way: switch evaluates expression and checks if it is equivalent to constant1, if it is, it executes group of statements 1 until it finds the break statement. When it finds this break statement the program jumps to the end of the switch selective structure. If expression was not equal to constant1 it will be checked against constant2. If it is equal to this, it will execute group of statements 2 until a break keyword is found, and then will jump to the end of the switch selective structure. Finally, if the value of expression did not match any of the previously specified constants (you can include as many case labels as values you want to check), the program will execute the statements included after the default: label, if it exists (since it is optional). Both of the following code fragments have the same behavior: switch example if-else equivalent switch (x) { case 1: cout << “x is 1″; break; case 2: cout << “x is 2″; break; default: cout << “value of x unknown”; } if (x == 1) { cout << “x is 1″; } else if (x == 2) { cout << “x is 2″; } else { cout << “value of x unknown”; } The switch statement is a bit peculiar within the C++ language because it uses labels instead of blocks. This forces us to put break statements after the group of statements that we want to be executed for a specific condition. Otherwise the remainder statements -including those corresponding to other labels- will also be executed until the end of the switch selective block or a break statement is reached. For example, if we did not include a break statement after the first group for case one, the program will not automatically jump to the end of the switch selective block and it would continue executing the rest of statements until it reaches either a break instruction or the end of the switch selective block. This makes unnecessary to include braces { } surrounding the statements for each of the cases, and it can also be useful to execute the same block of instructions for different possible values for the expression being evaluated. For example: switch (x) { case 1: case 2: case 3: cout << “x is 1, 2 or 3″; break; default: cout << “x is not 1, 2 nor 3″; } Notice that switch can only be used to compare an expression against constants. Therefore we cannot put variables as labels (for example case n: where n is a variable) or ranges (case (1..3):) because they are not valid C++ constants. If you need to check ranges or values that are not constants, use a concatenation of if and else if statements Functions (I) Using functions we can structure our programs in a more modular way, accessing all the potential that structured programming can offer to us in C++. A function is a group of statements that is executed when it is called from some point of the program. The following is its format: type name ( parameter1, parameter2, …) { statements } where: * type is the data type specifier of the data returned by the function. * name is the identifier by which it will be possible to call the function. * parameters (as many as needed): Each parameter consists of a data type specifier followed by an identifier, like any regular variable declaration (for example: int x) and which acts within the function as a regular local variable. They allow to pass arguments to the function when it is called. The different parameters are separated by commas. * statements is the function’s body. It is a block of statements surrounded by braces { }. Here you have the first function example: // function example #include
using namespace std;
int addition (int a, int b)
{
int r;
r=a+b;
return (r);
}
int main ()
{
int z;
z = addition (5,3);
cout << “The result is ” << r="a+b,">
using namespace std;
int subtraction (int a, int b)
{
int r;
r=a-b;
return (r);
}
int main ()
{
int x=5, y=3, z;
z = subtraction (7,2);
cout << “The first result is ” << z=" 4" z =" subtraction" z =" 5;" z =" 4" z =" subtraction" z =" 4" z =" 2">
using namespace std;
void printmessage ()
{
cout << “I’m a function!”; } int main () { printmessage (); return 0; } I’m a function! void can also be used in the function’s parameter list to explicitly specify that we want the function to take no actual parameters when it is called. For example, function printmessage could have been declared as: void printmessage (void) { cout << “I’m a function!”; } Although it is optional to specify void in the parameter list. In C++, a parameter list can simply be left blank if we want a function with no parameters. What you must always remember is that the format for calling a function includes specifying its name and enclosing its parameters between parentheses. The non-existence of parameters does not exempt us from the obligation to write the parentheses. For that reason the call to printmessage is: printmessage (); The parentheses clearly indicate that this is a call to a function and not the name of a variable or some other C++ statement. The following call would have been incorrect: printmessage; Functions (II) Arguments passed by value and by reference. Until now, in all the functions we have seen, the arguments passed to the functions have been passed by value. This means that when calling a function with parameters, what we have passed to the function were copies of their values but never the variables themselves. For example, suppose that we called our first function addition using the following code: int x=5, y=3, z; z = addition ( x , y ); What we did in this case was to call to function addition passing the values of x and y, i.e. 5 and 3 respectively, but not the variables x and y themselves. This way, when the function addition is called, the value of its local variables a and b become 5 and 3 respectively, but any modification to either a or b within the function addition will not have any effect in the values of x and y outside it, because variables x and y were not themselves passed to the function, but only copies of their values at the moment the function was called. But there might be some cases where you need to manipulate from inside a function the value of an external variable. For that purpose we can use arguments passed by reference, as in the function duplicate of the following example: // passing parameters by reference #include
using namespace std;
void duplicate (int& a, int& b, int& c)
{
a*=2;
b*=2;
c*=2;
}
int main ()
{
int x=1, y=3, z=7;
duplicate (x, y, z);
cout << “x=” << y="”" z="”" x="2," y="6," z="14">
using namespace std;
void prevnext (int x, int& prev, int& next)
{
prev = x-1;
next = x+1;
}
int main ()
{
int x=100, y, z;
prevnext (x, y, z);
cout << “Previous=” << next="”" previous="99," next="101">
using namespace std;
int divide (int a, int b=2)
{
int r;
r=a/b;
return (r);
}
int main ()
{
cout << b="2," b="2)">
using namespace std;
int operate (int a, int b)
{
return (a*b);
}
float operate (float a, float b)
{
return (a/b);
}
int main ()
{
int x=5,y=2;
float n=5.0,m=2.0;
cout << 1 =" 120">
using namespace std;
long factorial (long a)
{
if (a > 1)
return (a * factorial (a-1));
else
return (1);
}
int main ()
{
long number;
cout << “Please type a number: “; cin >> number;
cout <<>
using namespace std;
void odd (int a);
void even (int a);
int main ()
{
int i;
do {
cout << “Type a number (0 to exit): “; cin >> i;
odd (i);
} while (i!=0);
return 0;
}
void odd (int a)
{
if ((a%2)!=0) cout << “Number is odd.n”; else even (a); } void even (int a) { if ((a%2)==0) cout << “Number is even.n”; else odd (a); } Type a number (0 to exit): 9 Number is odd. Type a number (0 to exit): 6 Number is even. Type a number (0 to exit): 1030 Number is even. Type a number (0 to exit): 0 Number is even. This example is indeed not an example of efficiency. I am sure that at this point you can already make a program with the same result, but using only half of the code lines that have been used in this example. Anyway this example illustrates how prototyping works. Moreover, in this concrete example the prototyping of at least one of the two functions is necessary in order to compile the code without errors. The first things that we see are the declaration of functions odd and even: void odd (int a); void even (int a); This allows these functions to be used before they are defined, for example, in main, which now is located where some people find it to be a more logical place for the start of a program: the beginning of the source code. Anyway, the reason why this program needs at least one of the functions to be declared before it is defined is because in odd there is a call to even and in even there is a call to odd. If none of the two functions had been previously declared, a compilation error would happen, since either odd would not not be visible from even (because it has still not been declared), or even would not be visible from odd (for the same reason). Having the prototype of all functions together in the same place within the source code is found practical by some programmers, and this can be easily achieved by declaring all functions Arrays An array is a series of elements of the same type placed in contiguous memory locations that can be individually referenced by adding an index to a unique identifier. That means that, for example, we can store 5 values of type int in an array without having to declare 5 different variables, each one with a different identifier. Instead of that, using an array we can store 5 different values of the same type, int for example, with a unique identifier. For example, an array to contain 5 integer values of type int called billy could be represented like this: where each blank panel represents an element of the array, that in this case are integer values of type int. These elements are numbered from 0 to 4 since in arrays the first index is always 0, independently of its length. Like a regular variable, an array must be declared before it is used. A typical declaration for an array in C++ is: type name [elements]; where type is a valid type (like int, float…), name is a valid identifier and the elements field (which is always enclosed in square brackets []), specifies how many of these elements the array has to contain. Therefore, in order to declare an array called billy as the one shown in the above diagram it is as simple as: int billy [5]; NOTE: The elements field within brackets [] which represents the number of elements the array is going to hold, must be a constant value, since arrays are blocks of non-dynamic memory whose size must be determined before execution. In order to create arrays with a variable length dynamic memory is needed, which is explained later in these tutorials. Initializing arrays. When declaring a regular array of local scope (within a function, for example), if we do not specify otherwise, its elements will not be initialized to any value by default, so their content will be undetermined until we store some value in them. The elements of global and static arrays, on the other hand, are automatically initialized with their default values, which for all fundamental types this means they are filled with zeros. In both cases, local and global, when we declare an array, we have the possibility to assign initial values to each one of its elements by enclosing the values in braces { }. For example: int billy [5] = { 16, 2, 77, 40, 12071 }; This declaration would have created an array like this: The amount of values between braces { } must not be larger than the number of elements that we declare for the array between square brackets [ ]. For example, in the example of array billy we have declared that it has 5 elements and in the list of initial values within braces { } we have specified 5 values, one for each element. When an initialization of values is provided for an array, C++ allows the possibility of leaving the square brackets empty [ ]. In this case, the compiler will assume a size for the array that matches the number of values included between braces { }: int billy [] = { 16, 2, 77, 40, 12071 }; After this declaration, array billy would be 5 ints long, since we have provided 5 initialization values. Accessing the values of an array. In any point of a program in which an array is visible, we can access the value of any of its elements individually as if it was a normal variable, thus being able to both read and modify its value. The format is as simple as: name[index] Following the previous examples in which billy had 5 elements and each of those elements was of type int, the name which we can use to refer to each element is the following: For example, to store the value 75 in the third element of billy, we could write the following statement: billy[2] = 75; and, for example, to pass the value of the third element of billy to a variable called a, we could write: a = billy[2]; Therefore, the expression billy[2] is for all purposes like a variable of type int. Notice that the third element of billy is specified billy[2], since the first one is billy[0], the second one is billy[1], and therefore, the third one is billy[2]. By this same reason, its last element is billy[4]. Therefore, if we write billy[5], we would be accessing the sixth element of billy and therefore exceeding the size of the array. In C++ it is syntactically correct to exceed the valid range of indices for an array. This can create problems, since accessing out-of-range elements do not cause compilation errors but can cause runtime errors. The reason why this is allowed will be seen further ahead when we begin to use pointers. At this point it is important to be able to clearly distinguish between the two uses that brackets [ ] have related to arrays. They perform two different tasks: one is to specify the size of arrays when they are declared; and the second one is to specify indices for concrete array elements. Do not confuse these two possible uses of brackets [ ] with arrays. int billy[5]; // declaration of a new array billy[2] = 75; // access to an element of the array. If you read carefully, you will see that a type specifier always precedes a variable or array declaration, while it never precedes an access. Some other valid operations with arrays: billy[0] = a; billy[a] = 75; b = billy [a+2]; billy[billy[a]] = billy[2] + 5; // arrays example #include
using namespace std;
int billy [] = {16, 2, 77, 40, 12071};
int n, result=0;
int main ()
{
for ( n=0 ; n<5 5 =" 15)" n="0;n
using namespace std;
void printarray (int arg[], int length) {
for (int n=0; n
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
char question[] = “Please, enter your first name: “;
char greeting[] = “Hello, “;
char yourname [80];
cout <<>> yourname;
cout << mystring =" myntcs;" ted =" &andy;" andy =" 25;" fred =" andy;" ted =" &andy;" beth =" *ted;" beth =" ted;" beth =" *ted;" andy =" 25;" ted =" &andy;" andy ="="" andy ="="" ted ="="" ted ="="" andy="25." ted="&andy." ted ="="" ted =" &andy;" andy =" 25;" fred =" andy;" ted =" &andy;" beth =" *ted;" beth =" ted;" beth =" *ted;" andy =" 25;" ted =" &andy;" andy ="="" andy ="="" ted ="="" ted ="="" andy="25." ted="&andy." ted ="="">
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
int firstvalue, secondvalue;
int * mypointer;
mypointer = &firstvalue;
*mypointer = 10;
mypointer = &secondvalue;
*mypointer = 20;
cout << “firstvalue is ” <<>
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
int firstvalue = 5, secondvalue = 15;
int * p1, * p2;
p1 = &firstvalue; // p1 = address of firstvalue
p2 = &secondvalue; // p2 = address of secondvalue
*p1 = 10; // value pointed by p1 = 10
*p2 = *p1; // value pointed by p2 = value pointed by p1
p1 = p2; // p1 = p2 (value of pointer is copied)
*p1 = 20; // value pointed by p1 = 20
cout << “firstvalue is ” << p =" numbers;" numbers =" p;">
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
int numbers[5];
int * p;
p = numbers; *p = 10;
p++; *p = 20;
p = &numbers[2]; *p = 30;
p = numbers + 3; *p = 40;
p = numbers; *(p+4) = 50;
for (int n=0; n<5; n++)
cout << numbers[n] << “, “;
return 0;
}
10, 20, 30, 40, 50,
In the chapter about arrays we used brackets ([]) several times in order to specify the index of an element of the array to which we wanted to refer. Well, these bracket sign operators [] are also a dereference operator known as offset operator. They dereference the variable they follow just as * does, but they also add the number between brackets to the address being dereferenced. For example:
a[5] = 0; // a [offset of 5] = 0
*(a+5) = 0; // pointed by (a+5) = 0
These two expressions are equivalent and valid both if a is a pointer or if a is an array.
Pointer initialization
When declaring pointers we may want to explicitly specify which variable we want them to point to:
int number;
int *tommy = &number;
The behavior of this code is equivalent to:
int number;
int *tommy;
tommy = &number;
When a pointer initialization takes place we are always assigning the reference value to where the pointer points (tommy), never the value being pointed (*tommy). You must consider that at the moment of declaring a pointer, the asterisk (*) indicates only that it is a pointer, it is not the dereference operator (although both use the same sign: *). Remember, they are two different functions of one sign. Thus, we must take care not to confuse the previous code with:
int number;
int *tommy;
*tommy = &number;
that is incorrect, and anyway would not have much sense in this case if you think about it.
As in the case of arrays, the compiler allows the special case that we want to initialize the content at which the pointer points with constants at the same moment the pointer is declared:
char * terry = “hello”;
In this case, memory space is reserved to contain “hello” and then a pointer to the first character of this memory block is assigned to terry. If we imagine that “hello” is stored at the memory locations that start at addresses 1702, we can represent the previous declaration as:
It is important to indicate that terry contains the value 1702, and not ‘h’ nor “hello”, although 1702 indeed is the address of both of these.
The pointer terry points to a sequence of characters and can be read as if it was an array (remember that an array is just like a constant pointer). For example, we can access the fifth element of the array with any of these two expression:
*(terry+4)
terry[4]
Both expressions have a value of ‘o’ (the fifth element of the array
Make Program
Probably the best way to start learning a programming language is by writing a program. Therefore, here is our first program:
// my first program in C++
#include
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
cout << “Hello TechPreparation!”; return 0; } Hello TechPreparation! The first panel shows the source code for our first program. The second one shows the result of the program once compiled and executed. The way to edit and compile a program depends on the compiler you are using. Depending on whether it has a Development Interface or not and on its version. Consult the compilers section and the manual or help included with your compiler if you have doubts on how to compile a C++ console program. The previous program is the typical program that programmer apprentices write for the first time, and its result is the printing on screen of the “Hello TechPreparation!” sentence. It is one of the simplest programs that can be written in C++, but it already contains the fundamental components that every C++ program has. We are going to look line by line at the code we have just written: // my first program in C++ This is a comment line. All lines beginning with two slash signs (//) are considered comments and do not have any effect on the behavior of the program. The programmer can use them to include short explanations or observations within the source code itself. In this case, the line is a brief description of what our program is. #include
Lines beginning with a pound sign (#) are directives for the preprocessor. They are not regular code lines with expressions but indications for the compiler’s preprocessor. In this case the directive #include
using namespace std;
All the elements of the standard C++ library are declared within what is called a namespace, the namespace with the name std. So in order to access its functionality we declare with this expression that we will be using these entities. This line is very frequent in C++ programs that use the standard library, and in fact it will be included in most of the source codes included in these tutorials.
int main ()
This line corresponds to the beginning of the definition of the main function. The main function is the point by where all C++ programs start their execution, independently of its location within the source code. It does not matter whether there are other functions with other names defined before or after it – the instructions contained within this function’s definition will always be the first ones to be executed in any C++ program. For that same reason, it is essential that all C++ programs have a main function.
The word main is followed in the code by a pair of parentheses (()). That is because it is a function declaration: In C++, what differentiates a function declaration from other types of expressions are these parentheses that follow its name. Optionally, these parentheses may enclose a list of parameters within them.
Right after these parentheses we can find the body of the main function enclosed in braces ({}). What is contained within these braces is what the function does when it is executed.
cout << “Hello TechPreparation”; This line is a C++ statement. A statement is a simple or compound expression that can actually produce some effect. In fact, this statement performs the only action that generates a visible effect in our first program. cout represents the standard output stream in C++, and the meaning of the entire statement is to insert a sequence of characters (in this case the Hello TechPreparation sequence of characters) into the standard output stream (which usually is the screen). cout is declared in the iostream standard file within the std namespace, so that’s why we needed to include that specific file and to declare that we were going to use this specific namespace earlier in our code. Notice that the statement ends with a semicolon character (;). This character is used to mark the end of the statement and in fact it must be included at the end of all expression statements in all C++ programs (one of the most common syntax errors is indeed to forget to include some semicolon after a statement). return 0; The return statement causes the main function to finish. return may be followed by a return code (in our example is followed by the return code 0). A return code of 0 for the main function is generally interpreted as the program worked as expected without any errors during its execution. This is the most usual way to end a C++ console program. You may have noticed that not all the lines of this program perform actions when the code is executed. There were lines containing only comments (those beginning by //). There were lines with directives for the compiler’s preprocessor (those beginning by #). Then there were lines that began the declaration of a function (in this case, the main function) and, finally lines with statements (like the insertion into cout), which were all included within the block delimited by the braces ({}) of the main function. The program has been structured in different lines in order to be more readable, but in C++, we do not have strict rules on how to separate instructions in different lines. For example, instead of int main () { cout << “Hello TechPreparation “; return 0; } We could have written: int main () { cout << “Hello TechPreparation”; return 0; } All in just one line and this would have had exactly the same meaning as the previous code. In C++, the separation between statements is specified with an ending semicolon (;) at the end of each one, so the separation in different code lines does not matter at all for this purpose. We can write many statements per line or write a single statement that takes many code lines. The division of code in different lines serves only to make it more legible and schematic for the humans that may read it. Let us add an additional instruction to our first program: // my second program in C++ #include
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
cout << “Hello TechPreparation! “; cout << “I’m a C++ program”; return 0; } Hello TechPreparation! I’m a C++ program In this case, we performed two insertions into cout in two different statements. Once again, the separation in different lines of code has been done just to give greater readability to the program, since main could have been perfectly valid defined this way: int main () { cout << ” Hello TechPreparation! “; cout << ” I’m a C++ program “; return 0; } We were also free to divide the code into more lines if we considered it more convenient: int main () { cout << “Hello TechPreparation!”; cout << “I’m a C++ program”; return 0; } And the result would again have been exactly the same as in the previous examples. Preprocessor directives (those that begin by #) are out of this general rule since they are not statements. They are lines read and processed by the preprocessor and do not produce any code by themselves. Preprocessor directives must be specified in their own line and do not have to end with a semicolon (;). Comments Comments are parts of the source code disregarded by the compiler. They simply do nothing. Their purpose is only to allow the programmer to insert notes or descriptions embedded within the source code. C++ supports two ways to insert comments: // line comment /* block comment */ The first of them, known as line comment, discards everything from where the pair of slash signs (//) is found up to the end of that same line. The second one, known as block comment, discards everything between the /* characters and the first appearance of the */ characters, with the possibility of including more than one line. We are going to add comments to our second program: /* my second program in C++ with more comments */ #include
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
cout << “Hello TechPreparation! “; // prints Hello TechPreparation! cout << “I’m a C++ program”; // prints I’m a C++ program return 0; } Hello TechPreparation! I’m a C++ program If you include comments within the source code of your programs without using the comment characters combinations //, /* or */, the compiler will take them as if they were C++ expressions, most likely causing one or several error messages when you compile it. Variables. Data Types. The usefulness of the “Hello TechPreparation” programs shown in the previous section is quite questionable. We had to write several lines of code, compile them, and then execute the resulting program just to obtain a simple sentence written on the screen as result. It certainly would have been much faster to type the output sentence by ourselves. However, programming is not limited only to printing simple texts on the screen. In order to go a little further on and to become able to write programs that perform useful tasks that really save us work we need to introduce the concept of variable. Let us think that I ask you to retain the number 5 in your mental memory, and then I ask you to memorize also the number 2 at the same time. You have just stored two different values in your memory. Now, if I ask you to add 1 to the first number I said, you should be retaining the numbers 6 (that is 5+1) and 2 in your memory. Values that we could now for example subtract and obtain 4 as result. The whole process that you have just done with your mental memory is a simile of what a computer can do with two variables. The same process can be expressed in C++ with the following instruction set: a = 5; b = 2; a = a + 1; result = a – b; Obviously, this is a very simple example since we have only used two small integer values, but consider that your computer can store millions of numbers like these at the same time and conduct sophisticated mathematical operations with them. Therefore, we can define a variable as a portion of memory to store a determined value. Each variable needs an identifier that distinguishes it from the others, for example, in the previous code the variable identifiers were a, b and result, but we could have called the variables any names we wanted to invent, as long as they were valid identifiers. Identifiers A valid identifier is a sequence of one or more letters, digits or underscore characters (_). Neither spaces nor punctuation marks or symbols can be part of an identifier. Only letters, digits and single underscore characters are valid. In addition, variable identifiers always have to begin with a letter. They can also begin with an underline character (_ ), but in some cases these may be reserved for compiler specific keywords or external identifiers, as well as identifiers containing two successive underscore characters anywhere. In no case they can begin with a digit. Another rule that you have to consider when inventing your own identifiers is that they cannot match any keyword of the C++ language nor your compiler’s specific ones, which are reserved keywords. The standard reserved keywords are: asm, auto, bool, break, case, catch, char, class, const, const_cast, continue, default, delete, do, double, dynamic_cast, else, enum, explicit, export, extern, false, float, for, friend, goto, if, inline, int, long, mutable, namespace, new, operator, private, protected, public, register, reinterpret_cast, return, short, signed, sizeof, static, static_cast, struct, switch, template, this, throw, true, try, typedef, typeid, typename, union, unsigned, using, virtual, void, volatile, wchar_t, while Additionally, alternative representations for some operators cannot be used as identifiers since they are reserved words under some circumstances: and, and_eq, bitand, bitor, compl, not, not_eq, or, or_eq, xor, xor_eq Your compiler may also include some additional specific reserved keywords. Very important: The C++ language is a “case sensitive” language. That means that an identifier written in capital letters is not equivalent to another one with the same name but written in small letters. Thus, for example, the RESULT variable is not the same as the result variable or the Result variable. These are three different variable identifiers. Name Description Size* Range* char Character or small integer. 1byte signed: -128 to 127 unsigned: 0 to 255 short int (short) Short Integer. 2bytes signed: -32768 to 32767 unsigned: 0 to 65535 int Integer. 4bytes signed: -2147483648 to 2147483647 unsigned: 0 to 4294967295 long int (long) Long integer. 1byte signed: -2147483648 to 2147483647 unsigned: 0 to 4294967295 bool Boolean value. It can take one of two values: true or false. 1byte true or false float Floating point number. 4bytes 3.4e +/- 38 (7 digits) double Double precision floating point number. 8bytes 1.7e +/- 308 (15 digits) long double Long double precision floating point number. 8bytes 1.7e +/- 308 (15 digits) wchar_t Wide character. 2bytes 1 wide character * The values of the columns Size and Range depend on the system the program is compiled for. The values shown above are those found on most 32-bit systems. But for other systems, the general specification is that int has the natural size suggested by the system architecture (one “word”) and the four integer types char, short, int and long must each one be at least as large as the one preceding it, with char being always 1 byte in size. The same applies to the floating point types float, double and long double, where each one must provide at least as much precision as the preceding one. Declaration of variables In order to use a variable in C++, we must first declare it specifying which data type we want it to be. The syntax to declare a new variable is to write the specifier of the desired data type (like int, bool, float…) followed by a valid variable identifier. For example: int a; float mynumber; These are two valid declarations of variables. The first one declares a variable of type int with the identifier a. The second one declares a variable of type float with the identifier mynumber. Once declared, the variables a and mynumber can be used within the rest of their scope in the program. If you are going to declare more than one variable of the same type, you can declare all of them in a single statement by separating their identifiers with commas. For example: int a, b, c; This declares three variables (a, b and c), all of them of type int, and has exactly the same meaning as: int a; int b; int c; The integer data types char, short, long and int can be either signed or unsigned depending on the range of numbers needed to be represented. Signed types can represent both positive and negative values, whereas unsigned types can only represent positive values (and zero). This can be specified by using either the specifier signed or the specifier unsigned before the type name. For example: unsigned short int NumberOfSisters; signed int MyAccountBalance; By default, if we do not specify either signed or unsigned most compiler settings will assume the type to be signed, therefore instead of the second declaration above we could have written: int MyAccountBalance; with exactly the same meaning (with or without the keyword signed) An exception to this general rule is the char type, which exists by itself and is considered a different fundamental data type from signed char and unsigned char, thought to store characters. You should use either signed or unsigned if you intend to store numerical values in a char-sized variable. short and long can be used alone as type specifiers. In this case, they refer to their respective integer fundamental types: short is equivalent to short int and long is equivalent to long int. The following two variable declarations are equivalent: short Year; short int Year; Finally, signed and unsigned may also be used as standalone type specifiers, meaning the same as signed int and unsigned int respectively. The following two declarations are equivalent: unsigned NextYear; unsigned int NextYear; To see what variable declarations look like in action within a program, we are going to see the C++ code of the example about your mental memory proposed at the beginning of this section: // operating with variables #include
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
// declaring variables:
int a, b;
int result;
// process:
a = 5;
b = 2;
a = a + 1;
result = a – b;
// print out the result:
cout << identifier =" initial_value" a =" 0;">
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
int a=5; // initial value = 5
int b(2); // initial value = 2
int result; // initial value undetermined
a = a + 3;
result = a – b;
cout <<>and have access to the std namespace (which we already had in all our previous programs thanks to the using namespace statement).
// my first string
#include
#include
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
string mystring = “This is a string”;
cout << mystring =" “This">
#include
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
string mystring;
mystring = “This is the initial string content”;
cout << mystring =" “This" a =" 5;">
using namespace std;
#define PI 3.14159
#define NEWLINE ‘n’
int main ()
{
double r=5.0; // radius
double circle;
circle = 2 * PI * r;
cout << pathwidth =" 100;" tabulator =" ‘t’;" a =" 5;" a =" b;">
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
int a, b; // a:?, b:?
a = 10; // a:10, b:?
b = 4; // a:10, b:4
a = b; // a:4, b:4
b = 7; // a:4, b:7
cout << “a:”; cout << a =" b" a =" 2" b =" 5);" b =" 5;" a =" 2" a =" b" c =" 5;" a =" 11">>=, <<=, &=, ^=, |=) When we want to modify the value of a variable by performing an operation on the value currently stored in that variable we can use compound assignment operators: expression is equivalent to value += increase; value = value + increase; a -= 5; a = a – 5; a /= b; a = a / b; price *= units + 1; price = price * (units + 1); and the same for all other operators. For example: // compound assignment operators #include
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
int a, b=3;
a = b;
a+=2; // equivalent to a=a+2
cout << c="c+1;" b="3;" a="++B;" b="3;" a="B++;">, <, >=, <= ) In order to evaluate a comparison between two expressions we can use the relational and equality operators. The result of a relational operation is a Boolean value that can only be true or false, according to its Boolean result. We may want to compare two expressions, for example, to know if they are equal or if one is greater than the other is. Here is a list of the relational and equality operators that can be used in C++: == Equal to != Not equal to > Greater than
<>= Greater than or equal to
<= Less than or equal to Here there are some examples: (7 == 5) // evaluates to false. (5 > 4) // evaluates to true.
(3 != 2) // evaluates to true.
(6 >= 6) // evaluates to true.
(5 < a="2," b="3" c="6," a ="="">= c) // evaluates to true since (2*3 >= 6) is true.
(b+4 > a*c) // evaluates to false since (3+4 > 2*6) is false.
((b=2) == a) // evaluates to true.
Be careful! The operator = (one equal sign) is not the same as the operator == (two equal signs), the first one is an assignment operator (assigns the value at its right to the variable at its left) and the other one (==) is the equality operator that compares whether both expressions in the two sides of it are equal to each other. Thus, in the last expression ((b=2) == a), we first assigned the value 2 to b and then we compared it to a, that also stores the value 2, so the result of the operation is true.
Logical operators ( !, &&, || )
The Operator ! is the C++ operator to perform the Boolean operation NOT, it has only one operand, located at its right, and the only thing that it does is to inverse the value of it, producing false if its operand is true and true if its operand is false. Basically, it returns the opposite Boolean value of evaluating its operand. For example:
!(5 == 5) // evaluates to false because the expression at its right (5 == 5) is true.
!(6 <= 4) // evaluates to true because (6 <= 4) would be false. !true // evaluates to false !false // evaluates to true. The logical operators && and || are used when evaluating two expressions to obtain a single relational result. The operator && corresponds with Boolean logical operation AND. This operation results true if both its two operands are true, and false otherwise. The following panel shows the result of operator && evaluating the expression a && b: && OPERATOR a b a&b true true false false true false true false true false false false The operator || corresponds with Boolean logical operation OR. This operation results true if either one of its two operands is true, thus being false only when both operands are false themselves. Here are the possible results of a || b: a b a || b true true false false true false true false true true true false For example: ( (5 == 5) && (3 > 6) ) // evaluates to false ( true && false ).
( (5 == 5) || (3 > 6) ) // evaluates to true ( true || false ).
Conditional operator ( ? )
The conditional operator evaluates an expression returning a value if that expression is true and a different one if the expression is evaluated as false. Its format is:
condition ? result1 : result2
If condition is true the expression will return result1, if it is not it will return result2.
7==5 ? 4 : 3 // returns 3, since 7 is not equal to 5.
7==5+2 ? 4 : 3 // returns 4, since 7 is equal to 5+2.
5>3 ? a : b // returns the value of a, since 5 is greater than 3.
a>b ? a : b // returns whichever is greater, a or b.
// conditional operator
#include
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
int a,b,c;
a=2;
b=7;
c = (a>b) ? a : b;
cout <<>b) was not true, thus the first value specified after the question mark was discarded in favor of the second value (the one after the colon) which was b, with a value of 7.
Comma operator ( , )
The comma operator (,) is used to separate two or more expressions that are included where only one expression is expected. When the set of expressions has to be evaluated for a value, only the rightmost expression is considered.
For example, the following code:
a = (b=3, b+2);
Would first assign the value 3 to b, and then assign b+2 to variable a. So, at the end, variable a would contain the value 5 while variable b would contain value 3.
Bitwise Operators ( &, |, ^, ~, <<, >> )
Bitwise operators modify variables considering the bit patterns that represent the values they store.
operator asm equivalent description
&
|
^
~
<< >> AND
OR
XOR
NOT
SHL
SHR Bitwise AND
Bitwise Inclusive OR
Bitwise Exclusive OR
Unary complement (bit inversion)
Shift Left
Shift Right
Explicit type casting operator
Type casting operators allow you to convert a datum of a given type to another. There are several ways to do this in C++. The simplest one, which has been inherited from the C language, is to precede the expression to be converted by the new type enclosed between parentheses (()):
int i;
float f = 3.14;
i = (int) f;
The previous code converts the float number 3.14 to an integer value (3), the remainder is lost. Here, the typecasting operator was (int). Another way to do the same thing in C++ is using the functional notation: preceding the expression to be converted by the type and enclosing the expression between parentheses:
i = int ( f );
Both ways of type casting are valid in C++.
sizeof()
This operator accepts one parameter, which can be either a type or a variable itself and returns the size in bytes of that type or object:
a = sizeof (char);
This will assign the value 1 to a because char is a one-byte long type.
The value returned by sizeof is a constant, so it is always determined before program execution.
Other operators
Later in these tutorials, we will see a few more operators, like the ones referring to pointers or the specifics for object-oriented programming. Each one is treated in its respective section.
Precedence of operators
When writing complex expressions with several operands, we may have some doubts about which operand is evaluated first and which later. For example, in this expression:
a = 5 + 7 % 2
we may doubt if it really means:
a = 5 + (7 % 2) // with a result of 6, or
a = (5 + 7) % 2 // with a result of 0
The correct answer is the first of the two expressions, with a result of 6. There is an established order with the priority of each operator, and not only the arithmetic ones (those whose preference come from mathematics) but for all the operators which can appear in C++. From greatest to lowest priority, the priority order is as follows:
Level Operator Description Grouping
1 :: scope Left-to-right
2 () [] . -> ++ — dynamic_cast static_cast reinterpret_cast const_cast typeid postfix Left-to-right
3 ++ — ~ ! sizeof new delete unary (prefix) Right-to-left
* & indirection and reference (pointers)
+ - unary sign operator
4 (type) type casting Right-to-left
5 .* ->* pointer-to-member Left-to-right
6 * / % multiplicative Left-to-right
7 + - additive Left-to-right
8 << >> shift Left-to-right
9 < > <= >= relational Left-to-right
10 == != equality Left-to-right
11 & bitwise AND Left-to-right
12 ^ bitwise XOR Left-to-right
13 | bitwise OR Left-to-right
14 && logical AND Left-to-right
15 || logical OR Left-to-right
16 ?: conditional Right-to-left
17 = *= /= %= += -= >>= <<= &= ^= != assignment Right-to-left 18 , comma Left-to-right Grouping defines the precedence order in which operators are evaluated in the case that there are several operators of the same level in an expression. All these precedence levels for operators can be manipulated or become more legible by removing possible ambiguities using parentheses signs ( and ), as in this example: a = 5 + 7 % 2; might be written either as: a = 5 + (7 % 2); or a = (5 + 7) % 2; depending on the operation that we want to perform. So if you want to write complicated expressions and you are not completely sure of the precedence levels, always include parentheses. It will also become a code easier to read. Basic Input/Output Until now, the example programs of previous sections provided very little interaction with the user, if any at all. Using the standard input and output library, we will be able to interact with the user by printing messages on the screen and getting the user’s input from the keyboard. C++ uses a convenient abstraction called streams to perform input and output operations in sequential media such as the screen or the keyboard. A stream is an object where a program can either insert or extract characters to/from it. We do not really need to care about many specifications about the physical media associated with the stream – we only need to know it will accept or provide characters sequentially. The standard C++ library includes the header file iostream, where the standard input and output stream objects are declared. Standard Output (cout) By default, the standard output of a program is the screen, and the C++ stream object defined to access it is cout. cout is used in conjunction with the insertion operator, which is written as << (two “less than” signs). cout << “Output sentence”; // prints Output sentence on screen cout <<>>) on the cin stream. The operator must be followed by the variable that will store the data that is going to be extracted from the stream. For example:
int age;
cin >> age;
The first statement declares a variable of type int called age, and the second one waits for an input from cin (the keyboard) in order to store it in this integer variable.
cin can only process the input from the keyboard once the RETURN key has been pressed. Therefore, even if you request a single character, the extraction from cin will not process the input until the user presses RETURN after the character has been introduced.
You must always consider the type of the variable that you are using as a container with cin extractions. If you request an integer you will get an integer, if you request a character you will get a character and if you request a string of characters you will get a string of characters.
// i/o example
#include
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
int i;
cout << “Please enter an integer value: “; cin >> i;
cout << “The value you entered is ” <<>> a >> b;
is equivalent to:
cin >> a;
cin >> b;
In both cases the user must give two data, one for variable a and another one for variable b that may be separated by any valid blank separator: a space, a tab character or a newline.
cin and strings
We can use cin to get strings with the extraction operator (>>) as we do with fundamental data type variables:
cin >> mystring;
However, as it has been said, cin extraction stops reading as soon as if finds any blank space character, so in this case we will be able to get just one word for each extraction. This behavior may or may not be what we want; for example if we want to get a sentence from the user, this extraction operation would not be useful.
In order to get entire lines, we can use the function getline, which is the more recommendable way to get user input with cin:
// cin with strings
#include
#include
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
string mystr;
cout << “What’s your name? “; getline (cin, mystr); cout << “Hello ” <<>defines a class called stringstream that allows a string-based object to be treated as a stream. This way we can perform extraction or insertion operations from/to strings, which is especially useful to convert strings to numerical values and vice versa. For example, if we want to extract an integer from a string we can write:
string mystr (“1204″);
int myint;
stringstream(mystr) >> myint;
This declares a string object with a value of “1204″, and an int object. Then we use stringstream’s constructor to construct an object of this type from the string object. Because we can use stringstream objects as if they were streams, we can extract an integer from it as we would have done on cin by applying the extractor operator (>>) on it followed by a variable of type int.
After this piece of code, the variable myint will contain the numerical value 1204.
// stringstreams
#include
#include
#include
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
string mystr;
float price=0;
int quantity=0;
cout << “Enter price: “; getline (cin,mystr); stringstream(mystr) >> price;
cout << “Enter quantity: “; getline (cin,mystr); stringstream(mystr) >> quantity;
cout << “Total price: ” << x ="="" x ="="" x ="=""> 0)
cout << “x is positive”; else if (x <>
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
int n;
cout << “Enter the starting number > “;
cin >> n;
while (n>0) {
cout <<> 8
8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, FIRE!
When the program starts the user is prompted to insert a starting number for the countdown. Then the while loop begins, if the value entered by the user fulfills the condition n>0 (that n is greater than zero) the block that follows the condition will be executed and repeated while the condition (n>0) remains being true.
The whole process of the previous program can be interpreted according to the following script (beginning in main):
1. User assigns a value to n
2. The while condition is checked (n>0). At this point there are two posibilities:
* condition is true: statement is executed (to step 3)
* condition is false: ignore statement and continue after it (to step 5)
3. Execute statement:
cout <<>0) to become false after a certain number of loop iterations: to be more specific, when n becomes 0, that is where our while-loop and our countdown end.
Of course this is such a simple action for our computer that the whole countdown is performed instantly without any practical delay between numbers.
The do-while loop
Its format is:
do statement while (condition);
Its functionality is exactly the same as the while loop, except that condition in the do-while loop is evaluated after the execution of statement instead of before, granting at least one execution of statement even if condition is never fulfilled. For example, the following example program echoes any number you enter until you enter 0.
// number echoer
#include
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
unsigned long n;
do {
cout << “Enter number (0 to end): “; cin >> n;
cout << “You entered: ” <<>
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
for (int n=10; n>0; n–) {
cout << n="0," i="100">
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
int n;
for (n=10; n>0; n–)
{
cout << n="="3)">
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
for (int n=10; n>0; n–) {
if (n==5) continue;
cout <<>
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
int n=10;
loop:
cout <<>0) goto loop;
cout << “FIRE!n”; return 0; } 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, FIRE! The exit function exit is a function defined in the cstdlib library. The purpose of exit is to terminate the current program with a specific exit code. Its prototype is: void exit (int exitcode); The exitcode is used by some operating systems and may be used by calling programs. By convention, an exit code of 0 means that the program finished normally and any other value means that some error or unexpected results happened. The selective structure: switch. The syntax of the switch statement is a bit peculiar. Its objective is to check several possible constant values for an expression. Something similar to what we did at the beginning of this section with the concatenation of several if and else if instructions. Its form is the following: switch (expression) { case constant1: group of statements 1; break; case constant2: group of statements 2; break; . . . default: default group of statements } It works in the following way: switch evaluates expression and checks if it is equivalent to constant1, if it is, it executes group of statements 1 until it finds the break statement. When it finds this break statement the program jumps to the end of the switch selective structure. If expression was not equal to constant1 it will be checked against constant2. If it is equal to this, it will execute group of statements 2 until a break keyword is found, and then will jump to the end of the switch selective structure. Finally, if the value of expression did not match any of the previously specified constants (you can include as many case labels as values you want to check), the program will execute the statements included after the default: label, if it exists (since it is optional). Both of the following code fragments have the same behavior: switch example if-else equivalent switch (x) { case 1: cout << “x is 1″; break; case 2: cout << “x is 2″; break; default: cout << “value of x unknown”; } if (x == 1) { cout << “x is 1″; } else if (x == 2) { cout << “x is 2″; } else { cout << “value of x unknown”; } The switch statement is a bit peculiar within the C++ language because it uses labels instead of blocks. This forces us to put break statements after the group of statements that we want to be executed for a specific condition. Otherwise the remainder statements -including those corresponding to other labels- will also be executed until the end of the switch selective block or a break statement is reached. For example, if we did not include a break statement after the first group for case one, the program will not automatically jump to the end of the switch selective block and it would continue executing the rest of statements until it reaches either a break instruction or the end of the switch selective block. This makes unnecessary to include braces { } surrounding the statements for each of the cases, and it can also be useful to execute the same block of instructions for different possible values for the expression being evaluated. For example: switch (x) { case 1: case 2: case 3: cout << “x is 1, 2 or 3″; break; default: cout << “x is not 1, 2 nor 3″; } Notice that switch can only be used to compare an expression against constants. Therefore we cannot put variables as labels (for example case n: where n is a variable) or ranges (case (1..3):) because they are not valid C++ constants. If you need to check ranges or values that are not constants, use a concatenation of if and else if statements Functions (I) Using functions we can structure our programs in a more modular way, accessing all the potential that structured programming can offer to us in C++. A function is a group of statements that is executed when it is called from some point of the program. The following is its format: type name ( parameter1, parameter2, …) { statements } where: * type is the data type specifier of the data returned by the function. * name is the identifier by which it will be possible to call the function. * parameters (as many as needed): Each parameter consists of a data type specifier followed by an identifier, like any regular variable declaration (for example: int x) and which acts within the function as a regular local variable. They allow to pass arguments to the function when it is called. The different parameters are separated by commas. * statements is the function’s body. It is a block of statements surrounded by braces { }. Here you have the first function example: // function example #include
using namespace std;
int addition (int a, int b)
{
int r;
r=a+b;
return (r);
}
int main ()
{
int z;
z = addition (5,3);
cout << “The result is ” << r="a+b,">
using namespace std;
int subtraction (int a, int b)
{
int r;
r=a-b;
return (r);
}
int main ()
{
int x=5, y=3, z;
z = subtraction (7,2);
cout << “The first result is ” << z=" 4" z =" subtraction" z =" 5;" z =" 4" z =" subtraction" z =" 4" z =" 2">
using namespace std;
void printmessage ()
{
cout << “I’m a function!”; } int main () { printmessage (); return 0; } I’m a function! void can also be used in the function’s parameter list to explicitly specify that we want the function to take no actual parameters when it is called. For example, function printmessage could have been declared as: void printmessage (void) { cout << “I’m a function!”; } Although it is optional to specify void in the parameter list. In C++, a parameter list can simply be left blank if we want a function with no parameters. What you must always remember is that the format for calling a function includes specifying its name and enclosing its parameters between parentheses. The non-existence of parameters does not exempt us from the obligation to write the parentheses. For that reason the call to printmessage is: printmessage (); The parentheses clearly indicate that this is a call to a function and not the name of a variable or some other C++ statement. The following call would have been incorrect: printmessage; Functions (II) Arguments passed by value and by reference. Until now, in all the functions we have seen, the arguments passed to the functions have been passed by value. This means that when calling a function with parameters, what we have passed to the function were copies of their values but never the variables themselves. For example, suppose that we called our first function addition using the following code: int x=5, y=3, z; z = addition ( x , y ); What we did in this case was to call to function addition passing the values of x and y, i.e. 5 and 3 respectively, but not the variables x and y themselves. This way, when the function addition is called, the value of its local variables a and b become 5 and 3 respectively, but any modification to either a or b within the function addition will not have any effect in the values of x and y outside it, because variables x and y were not themselves passed to the function, but only copies of their values at the moment the function was called. But there might be some cases where you need to manipulate from inside a function the value of an external variable. For that purpose we can use arguments passed by reference, as in the function duplicate of the following example: // passing parameters by reference #include
using namespace std;
void duplicate (int& a, int& b, int& c)
{
a*=2;
b*=2;
c*=2;
}
int main ()
{
int x=1, y=3, z=7;
duplicate (x, y, z);
cout << “x=” << y="”" z="”" x="2," y="6," z="14">
using namespace std;
void prevnext (int x, int& prev, int& next)
{
prev = x-1;
next = x+1;
}
int main ()
{
int x=100, y, z;
prevnext (x, y, z);
cout << “Previous=” << next="”" previous="99," next="101">
using namespace std;
int divide (int a, int b=2)
{
int r;
r=a/b;
return (r);
}
int main ()
{
cout << b="2," b="2)">
using namespace std;
int operate (int a, int b)
{
return (a*b);
}
float operate (float a, float b)
{
return (a/b);
}
int main ()
{
int x=5,y=2;
float n=5.0,m=2.0;
cout << 1 =" 120">
using namespace std;
long factorial (long a)
{
if (a > 1)
return (a * factorial (a-1));
else
return (1);
}
int main ()
{
long number;
cout << “Please type a number: “; cin >> number;
cout <<>
using namespace std;
void odd (int a);
void even (int a);
int main ()
{
int i;
do {
cout << “Type a number (0 to exit): “; cin >> i;
odd (i);
} while (i!=0);
return 0;
}
void odd (int a)
{
if ((a%2)!=0) cout << “Number is odd.n”; else even (a); } void even (int a) { if ((a%2)==0) cout << “Number is even.n”; else odd (a); } Type a number (0 to exit): 9 Number is odd. Type a number (0 to exit): 6 Number is even. Type a number (0 to exit): 1030 Number is even. Type a number (0 to exit): 0 Number is even. This example is indeed not an example of efficiency. I am sure that at this point you can already make a program with the same result, but using only half of the code lines that have been used in this example. Anyway this example illustrates how prototyping works. Moreover, in this concrete example the prototyping of at least one of the two functions is necessary in order to compile the code without errors. The first things that we see are the declaration of functions odd and even: void odd (int a); void even (int a); This allows these functions to be used before they are defined, for example, in main, which now is located where some people find it to be a more logical place for the start of a program: the beginning of the source code. Anyway, the reason why this program needs at least one of the functions to be declared before it is defined is because in odd there is a call to even and in even there is a call to odd. If none of the two functions had been previously declared, a compilation error would happen, since either odd would not not be visible from even (because it has still not been declared), or even would not be visible from odd (for the same reason). Having the prototype of all functions together in the same place within the source code is found practical by some programmers, and this can be easily achieved by declaring all functions Arrays An array is a series of elements of the same type placed in contiguous memory locations that can be individually referenced by adding an index to a unique identifier. That means that, for example, we can store 5 values of type int in an array without having to declare 5 different variables, each one with a different identifier. Instead of that, using an array we can store 5 different values of the same type, int for example, with a unique identifier. For example, an array to contain 5 integer values of type int called billy could be represented like this: where each blank panel represents an element of the array, that in this case are integer values of type int. These elements are numbered from 0 to 4 since in arrays the first index is always 0, independently of its length. Like a regular variable, an array must be declared before it is used. A typical declaration for an array in C++ is: type name [elements]; where type is a valid type (like int, float…), name is a valid identifier and the elements field (which is always enclosed in square brackets []), specifies how many of these elements the array has to contain. Therefore, in order to declare an array called billy as the one shown in the above diagram it is as simple as: int billy [5]; NOTE: The elements field within brackets [] which represents the number of elements the array is going to hold, must be a constant value, since arrays are blocks of non-dynamic memory whose size must be determined before execution. In order to create arrays with a variable length dynamic memory is needed, which is explained later in these tutorials. Initializing arrays. When declaring a regular array of local scope (within a function, for example), if we do not specify otherwise, its elements will not be initialized to any value by default, so their content will be undetermined until we store some value in them. The elements of global and static arrays, on the other hand, are automatically initialized with their default values, which for all fundamental types this means they are filled with zeros. In both cases, local and global, when we declare an array, we have the possibility to assign initial values to each one of its elements by enclosing the values in braces { }. For example: int billy [5] = { 16, 2, 77, 40, 12071 }; This declaration would have created an array like this: The amount of values between braces { } must not be larger than the number of elements that we declare for the array between square brackets [ ]. For example, in the example of array billy we have declared that it has 5 elements and in the list of initial values within braces { } we have specified 5 values, one for each element. When an initialization of values is provided for an array, C++ allows the possibility of leaving the square brackets empty [ ]. In this case, the compiler will assume a size for the array that matches the number of values included between braces { }: int billy [] = { 16, 2, 77, 40, 12071 }; After this declaration, array billy would be 5 ints long, since we have provided 5 initialization values. Accessing the values of an array. In any point of a program in which an array is visible, we can access the value of any of its elements individually as if it was a normal variable, thus being able to both read and modify its value. The format is as simple as: name[index] Following the previous examples in which billy had 5 elements and each of those elements was of type int, the name which we can use to refer to each element is the following: For example, to store the value 75 in the third element of billy, we could write the following statement: billy[2] = 75; and, for example, to pass the value of the third element of billy to a variable called a, we could write: a = billy[2]; Therefore, the expression billy[2] is for all purposes like a variable of type int. Notice that the third element of billy is specified billy[2], since the first one is billy[0], the second one is billy[1], and therefore, the third one is billy[2]. By this same reason, its last element is billy[4]. Therefore, if we write billy[5], we would be accessing the sixth element of billy and therefore exceeding the size of the array. In C++ it is syntactically correct to exceed the valid range of indices for an array. This can create problems, since accessing out-of-range elements do not cause compilation errors but can cause runtime errors. The reason why this is allowed will be seen further ahead when we begin to use pointers. At this point it is important to be able to clearly distinguish between the two uses that brackets [ ] have related to arrays. They perform two different tasks: one is to specify the size of arrays when they are declared; and the second one is to specify indices for concrete array elements. Do not confuse these two possible uses of brackets [ ] with arrays. int billy[5]; // declaration of a new array billy[2] = 75; // access to an element of the array. If you read carefully, you will see that a type specifier always precedes a variable or array declaration, while it never precedes an access. Some other valid operations with arrays: billy[0] = a; billy[a] = 75; b = billy [a+2]; billy[billy[a]] = billy[2] + 5; // arrays example #include
using namespace std;
int billy [] = {16, 2, 77, 40, 12071};
int n, result=0;
int main ()
{
for ( n=0 ; n<5 5 =" 15)" n="0;n
using namespace std;
void printarray (int arg[], int length) {
for (int n=0; n
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
char question[] = “Please, enter your first name: “;
char greeting[] = “Hello, “;
char yourname [80];
cout <<>> yourname;
cout << mystring =" myntcs;" ted =" &andy;" andy =" 25;" fred =" andy;" ted =" &andy;" beth =" *ted;" beth =" ted;" beth =" *ted;" andy =" 25;" ted =" &andy;" andy ="="" andy ="="" ted ="="" ted ="="" andy="25." ted="&andy." ted ="="" ted =" &andy;" andy =" 25;" fred =" andy;" ted =" &andy;" beth =" *ted;" beth =" ted;" beth =" *ted;" andy =" 25;" ted =" &andy;" andy ="="" andy ="="" ted ="="" ted ="="" andy="25." ted="&andy." ted ="="">
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
int firstvalue, secondvalue;
int * mypointer;
mypointer = &firstvalue;
*mypointer = 10;
mypointer = &secondvalue;
*mypointer = 20;
cout << “firstvalue is ” <<>
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
int firstvalue = 5, secondvalue = 15;
int * p1, * p2;
p1 = &firstvalue; // p1 = address of firstvalue
p2 = &secondvalue; // p2 = address of secondvalue
*p1 = 10; // value pointed by p1 = 10
*p2 = *p1; // value pointed by p2 = value pointed by p1
p1 = p2; // p1 = p2 (value of pointer is copied)
*p1 = 20; // value pointed by p1 = 20
cout << “firstvalue is ” << p =" numbers;" numbers =" p;">
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
int numbers[5];
int * p;
p = numbers; *p = 10;
p++; *p = 20;
p = &numbers[2]; *p = 30;
p = numbers + 3; *p = 40;
p = numbers; *(p+4) = 50;
for (int n=0; n<5; n++)
cout << numbers[n] << “, “;
return 0;
}
10, 20, 30, 40, 50,
In the chapter about arrays we used brackets ([]) several times in order to specify the index of an element of the array to which we wanted to refer. Well, these bracket sign operators [] are also a dereference operator known as offset operator. They dereference the variable they follow just as * does, but they also add the number between brackets to the address being dereferenced. For example:
a[5] = 0; // a [offset of 5] = 0
*(a+5) = 0; // pointed by (a+5) = 0
These two expressions are equivalent and valid both if a is a pointer or if a is an array.
Pointer initialization
When declaring pointers we may want to explicitly specify which variable we want them to point to:
int number;
int *tommy = &number;
The behavior of this code is equivalent to:
int number;
int *tommy;
tommy = &number;
When a pointer initialization takes place we are always assigning the reference value to where the pointer points (tommy), never the value being pointed (*tommy). You must consider that at the moment of declaring a pointer, the asterisk (*) indicates only that it is a pointer, it is not the dereference operator (although both use the same sign: *). Remember, they are two different functions of one sign. Thus, we must take care not to confuse the previous code with:
int number;
int *tommy;
*tommy = &number;
that is incorrect, and anyway would not have much sense in this case if you think about it.
As in the case of arrays, the compiler allows the special case that we want to initialize the content at which the pointer points with constants at the same moment the pointer is declared:
char * terry = “hello”;
In this case, memory space is reserved to contain “hello” and then a pointer to the first character of this memory block is assigned to terry. If we imagine that “hello” is stored at the memory locations that start at addresses 1702, we can represent the previous declaration as:
It is important to indicate that terry contains the value 1702, and not ‘h’ nor “hello”, although 1702 indeed is the address of both of these.
The pointer terry points to a sequence of characters and can be read as if it was an array (remember that an array is just like a constant pointer). For example, we can access the fifth element of the array with any of these two expression:
*(terry+4)
terry[4]
Both expressions have a value of ‘o’ (the fifth element of the array
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