C++ Programming Code Examples

An array is defined as the collection of similar type of data items stored at contiguous memory locations. Arrays are the derived data type in C++ programming language which can store the primitive type of data such as int, char, double, float, etc. It also has the capability to store the collection of derived data types, such as pointers, structure, etc. The array is the simplest data structure where each data element can be randomly accessed by using its index number. C++ array is beneficial if you have to store similar elements. For example, if we want to store the marks of a student in 6 subjects, then we don't need to define different variables for the marks in the different subject. Instead of that, we can define an array which can store the marks in each subject at the contiguous memory locations. By using the array, we can access the elements easily. Only a few lines of code are required to access the elements of the array. The array contains the following properties. • Each element of an array is of same data type and carries the same size, i.e., int = 4 bytes. • Elements of the array are stored at contiguous memory locations where the first element is stored at the smallest memory location. • Elements of the array can be randomly accessed since we can calculate the address of each element of the array with the given base address and the size of the data element. • 1) Code Optimization: Less code to the access the data. • 2) Ease of traversing: By using the for loop, we can retrieve the elements of an array easily. • 3) Ease of sorting: To sort the elements of the array, we need a few lines of code only. • 4) Random Access: We can access any element randomly using the array. • 1) Allows a fixed number of elements to be entered which is decided at the time of declaration. Unlike a linked list, an array in C++ is not dynamic. • 2) Insertion and deletion of elements can be costly since the elements are needed to be managed in accordance with the new memory allocation. To declare an array in C++, a programmer specifies the type of the elements and the number of elements required by an array as follows This is called a single-dimensional array. The arraySize must be an integer constant greater than zero and type can be any valid C++ data type. For example, to declare a 10-element array called balance of type double, use this statement Here balance is a variable array which is sufficient to hold up to 10 double numbers. You can initialize an array in C++ either one by one or using a single statement as follows The number of values between braces { } cannot be larger than the number of elements that we declare for the array between square brackets [ ]. If you omit the size of the array, an array just big enough to hold the initialization is created. Therefore, if you write An element is accessed by indexing the array name. This is done by placing the index of the element within square brackets after the name of the array. The above statement will take the 10^th element from the array and assign the value to salary variable.

The cin object is used to accept input from the standard input device i.e. keyboard. It is defined in the iostream header file. C++ cin statement is the instance of the class istream and is used to read input from the standard input device which is usually a keyboard. The extraction operator(>>) is used along with the object cin for reading inputs. The extraction operator extracts the data from the object cin which is entered using the keyboard. is the extraction operator. is usually a variable, but can also be an element of containers like arrays, vectors, lists, etc. The "c" in cin refers to "character" and "in" means "input". Hence cin means "character input". The cin object is used along with the extraction operator >> in order to receive a stream of characters. The >> operator can also be used more than once in the same statement to accept multiple inputs. The cin object can also be used with other member functions such as getline(), read(), etc. Some of the commonly used member functions are: • cin.get(char &ch): Reads an input character and stores it in ch. • cin.getline(char *buffer, int length): Reads a stream of characters into the string buffer, It stops when: it has read length-1 characters or when it finds an end-of-line character '\n' or the end of the file eof. • cin.read(char *buffer, int n): Reads n bytes (or until the end of the file) from the stream into the buffer. • cin.ignore(int n): Ignores the next n characters from the input stream. • cin.eof(): Returns a non-zero value if the end of file (eof) is reached. The prototype of cin as defined in the iostream header file is: extern istream cin; The cin object in C++ is an object of class istream. It is associated with the standard C input stream stdin. The cin object is ensured to be initialized during or before the first time an object of type ios_base::Init is constructed. After the cin object is constructed, cin.tie() returns &cout. This means that any formatted input operation on cin forces a call to cout.flush() if any characters are pending for output.

A program shall contain a global function named main, which is the designated start of the program in hosted environment. main() function is the entry point of any C++ program. It is the point at which execution of program is started. When a C++ program is executed, the execution control goes directly to the main() function. Every C++ program have a main() function. void is a keyword in C++ language, void means nothing, whenever we use void as a function return type then that function nothing return. here main() function no return any value. main is a name of function which is predefined function in C++ library. In place of void we can also use int return type of main() function, at that time main() return integer type value. 1) It cannot be used anywhere in the program a) in particular, it cannot be called recursively b) its address cannot be taken 2) It cannot be predefined and cannot be overloaded: effectively, the name main in the global namespace is reserved for functions (although it can be used to name classes, namespaces, enumerations, and any entity in a non-global namespace, except that a function called "main" cannot be declared with C language linkage in any namespace). 3) It cannot be defined as deleted or (since C++11) declared with C language linkage, constexpr (since C++11), consteval (since C++20), inline, or static. 4) The body of the main function does not need to contain the return statement: if control reaches the end of main without encountering a return statement, the effect is that of executing return 0;. 5) Execution of the return (or the implicit return upon reaching the end of main) is equivalent to first leaving the function normally (which destroys the objects with automatic storage duration) and then calling std::exit with the same argument as the argument of the return. (std::exit then destroys static objects and terminates the program). 6) (since C++14) The return type of the main function cannot be deduced (auto main() {... is not allowed). 7) (since C++20) The main function cannot be a coroutine.

In C++, constructor is a special method which is invoked automatically at the time of object creation. It is used to initialize the data members of new object generally. The constructor in C++ has the same name as class or structure. Constructors are special class functions which performs initialization of every object. The Compiler calls the Constructor whenever an object is created. Constructors initialize values to object members after storage is allocated to the object. Whereas, Destructor on the other hand is used to destroy the class object. • Default Constructor: A constructor which has no argument is known as default constructor. It is invoked at the time of creating object. • Parameterized Constructor: In C++, a constructor with parameters is known as a parameterized constructor. This is the preferred method to initialize member data. These are the constructors with parameter. Using this Constructor you can provide different values to data members of different objects, by passing the appropriate values as argument. • Copy Constructors: These are special type of Constructors which takes an object as argument, and is used to copy values of data members of one object into other object. The copy constructor is a constructor which creates an object by initializing it with an object of the same class, which has been created previously. The copy constructor is used to - • Initialize one object from another of the same type. • Copy an object to pass it as an argument to a function. • Copy an object to return it from a function. If a copy constructor is not defined in a class, the compiler itself defines one.If the class has pointer variables and has some dynamic memory allocations, then it is a must to have a copy constructor. The most common form of copy constructor is shown here.

The main purpose of C++ programming is to add object orientation to the C programming language and classes are the central feature of C++ that supports object-oriented programming and are often called user-defined types. A class is used to specify the form of an object and it combines data representation and methods for manipulating that data into one neat package. The data and functions within a class are called members of the class. When you define a class, you define a blueprint for a data type. This doesn't actually define any data, but it does define what the class name means, that is, what an object of the class will consist of and what operations can be performed on such an object. A class definition starts with the keyword class followed by the class name; and the class body, enclosed by a pair of curly braces. A class definition must be followed either by a semicolon or a list of declarations. For example, we defined the Box data type using the keyword class as follows: The keyword public determines the access attributes of the members of the class that follows it. A public member can be accessed from outside the class anywhere within the scope of the class object. You can also specify the members of a class as private or protected which we will discuss in a sub-section. A class provides the blueprints for objects, so basically an object is created from a class. We declare objects of a class with exactly the same sort of declaration that we declare variables of basic types. Following statements declare two objects of class Box: Both of the objects Box1 and Box2 will have their own copy of data members. The public data members of objects of a class can be accessed using the direct member access operator (.). It is important to note that private and protected members can not be accessed directly using direct member access operator (.). There are further interesting concepts related to C++ Classes and Objects which we will discuss in various sub-sections listed below: • Class Member Functions: A member function of a class is a function that has its definition or its prototype within the class definition like any other variable. • Class Access Modifiers: A class member can be defined as public, private or protected. By default members would be assumed as private. • Constructor & Destructor: A class constructor is a special function in a class that is called when a new object of the class is created. A destructor is also a special function which is called when created object is deleted. • Copy Constructor: The copy constructor is a constructor which creates an object by initializing it with an object of the same class, which has been created previously. • Friend Functions: A friend function is permitted full access to private and protected members of a class. • Inline Functions: With an inline function, the compiler tries to expand the code in the body of the function in place of a call to the function. • this Pointer: Every object has a special pointer this which points to the object itself. • Pointer to C++ Classes: A pointer to a class is done exactly the same way a pointer to a structure is. In fact a class is really just a structure with functions in it. • Static Members of a Class: Both data members and function members of a class can be declared as static.

A predefined object of the class called iostream class is used to insert the new line characters while flushing the stream is called endl in C++. This endl is similar to \n which performs the functionality of inserting new line characters but it does not flush the stream whereas endl does the job of inserting the new line characters while flushing the stream. Hence the statement cout<<endl; will be equal to the statement cout<< '\n' << flush; meaning the new line character used along with flush explicitly becomes equivalent to the endl statement in C++. Whenever the program is writing the output data to the stream, all the data will not be written to the terminal at once. Instead, it will be written to the buffer until enough data is collected in the buffer to output to the terminal. But if are using flush in our program, the entire output data will be flushed to the terminal directly without storing anything in the buffer. Whenever there is a need to insert the new line character to display the output in the next line while flushing the stream, we can make use of endl in C++. Whenever there is a need to insert the new line character to display the output in the next line, we can make use of endl in '\n' character but it does not do the job of flushing the stream. So if we want to insert a new line character along with flushing the stream, we make use of endl in C++. Whenever the program is writing the output data to the stream, all the data will not be written to the terminal at once. Instead, it will be written to the buffer until enough data is collected in the buffer to output to the terminal. • It is a manipulator. • It doesn't occupy any memory. • It is a keyword and would not specify any meaning when stored in a string. • We cannot write 'endl' in between double quotations. • It is only supported by C++. • It keeps flushing the queue in the output buffer throughout the process.

#include is a way of including a standard or user-defined file in the program and is mostly written at the beginning of any C/C++ program. This directive is read by the preprocessor and orders it to insert the content of a user-defined or system header file into the following program. These files are mainly imported from an outside source into the current program. The process of importing such files that might be system-defined or user-defined is known as File Inclusion. This type of preprocessor directive tells the compiler to include a file in the source code program. Including using " ": When using the double quotes(" "), the preprocessor access the current directory in which the source "header_file" is located. This type is mainly used to access any header files of the user's program or user-defined files. Including using <>: While importing file using angular brackets(<>), the the preprocessor uses a predetermined directory path to access the file. It is mainly used to access system header files located in the standard system directories. Header File or Standard files: This is a file which contains C/C++ function declarations and macro definitions to be shared between several source files. Functions like the printf(), scanf(), cout, cin and various other input-output or other standard functions are contained within different header files. So to utilise those functions, the users need to import a few header files which define the required functions. User-defined files: These files resembles the header files, except for the fact that they are written and defined by the user itself. This saves the user from writing a particular function multiple times. Once a user-defined file is written, it can be imported anywhere in the program using the #include preprocessor. • In #include directive, comments are not recognized. So in case of #include <a//b>, a//b is treated as filename. • In #include directive, backslash is considered as normal text not escape sequence. So in case of #include <a\nb>, a\nb is treated as filename. • You can use only comment after filename otherwise it will give error.

The cout is a predefined object of ostream class. It is connected with the standard output device, which is usually a display screen. The cout is used in conjunction with stream insertion operator (<<) to display the output on a console. On most program environments, the standard output by default is the screen, and the C++ stream object defined to access it is cout. The syntax of the cout object in C++: cout << var_name; Or cout << "Some String"; is the insertion operator is usually a variable, but can also be an array element or elements of containers like vectors, lists, maps, etc. The "c" in cout refers to "character" and "out" means "output". Hence cout means "character output". The cout object is used along with the insertion operator << in order to display a stream of characters. The << operator can be used more than once with a combination of variables, strings, and manipulators. cout is used for displaying data on the screen. The operator << called as insertion operator or put to operator. The Insertion operator can be overloaded. Insertion operator is similar to the printf() operation in C. cout is the object of ostream class. Data flow direction is from variable to output device. Multiple outputs can be displayed using cout.