C++ Programming Code Examples

Static is a keyword in C++ used to give special characteristics to an element. Static elements are allocated storage only once in a program lifetime in static storage area. And they have a scope till the program lifetime. In C++, static is a keyword or modifier that belongs to the type not instance. So instance is not required to access the static members. In C++, static can be field, method, constructor, class, properties, operator and event. Advantage of C++ static keyword: Memory efficient. Now we don't need to create instance for accessing the static members, so it saves memory. Moreover, it belongs to the type, so it will not get memory each time when instance is created. C++ Static Field: A field which is declared as static is called static field. Unlike instance field which gets memory each time whenever you create object, there is only one copy of static field created in the memory. It is shared to all the objects. It is used to refer the common property of all objects such as rateOfInterest in case of Account, companyName in case of Employee etc. Static variables inside functions: Static variables when used inside function are initialized only once, and then they hold there value even through function calls. These static variables are stored on static storage area , not in stack. Static class objects: Static keyword works in the same way for class objects too. Objects declared static are allocated storage in static storage area, and have scope till the end of program. Static objects are also initialized using constructors like other normal objects. Assignment to zero, on using static keyword is only for primitive datatypes, not for user defined datatypes. Static data member in class: Static data members of class are those members which are shared by all the objects. Static data member has a single piece of storage, and is not available as separate copy with each object, like other non-static data members. Static member variables (data members) are not initialied using constructor, because these are not dependent on object initialization. Also, it must be initialized explicitly, always outside the class. If not initialized, Linker will give error. Static member functions: These functions work for the class as whole rather than for a particular object of a class. It can be called using an object and the direct member access . operator. But, its more typical to call a static member function by itself, using class name and scope resolution :: operator.

Inline function is one of the important feature of C++. So, let's first understand why inline functions are used and what is the purpose of inline function? When the program executes the function call instruction the CPU stores the memory address of the instruction following the function call, copies the arguments of the function on the stack and finally transfers control to the specified function. The CPU then executes the function code, stores the function return value in a predefined memory location/register and returns control to the calling function. This can become overhead if the execution time of function is less than the switching time from the caller function to called function (callee). For functions that are large and/or perform complex tasks, the overhead of the function call is usually insignificant compared to the amount of time the function takes to run. However, for small, commonly-used functions, the time needed to make the function call is often a lot more than the time needed to actually execute the function's code. This overhead occurs for small functions because execution time of small function is less than the switching time. C++ provides an inline functions to reduce the function call overhead. Inline function is a function that is expanded in line when it is called. When the inline function is called whole code of the inline function gets inserted or substituted at the point of inline function call. This substitution is performed by the C++ compiler at compile time. Inline function may increase efficiency if it is small. Remember, inlining is only a request to the compiler, not a command. Compiler can ignore the request for inlining. Compiler may not perform inlining in such circumstances like: • If a function contains a loop. (for, while, do-while) • If a function contains static variables. • If a function is recursive. • If a function return type is other than void, and the return statement doesn't exist in function body. • If a function contains switch or goto statement. • Function call overhead doesn't occur. • It also saves the overhead of push/pop variables on the stack when function is called. • It also saves overhead of a return call from a function. • When you inline a function, you may enable compiler to perform context specific optimization on the body of function. Such optimizations are not possible for normal function calls. Other optimizations can be obtained by considering the flows of calling context and the called context. • Inline function may be useful (if it is small) for embedded systems because inline can yield less code than the function call preamble and return. • The added variables from the inlined function consumes additional registers, After in-lining function if variables number which are going to use register increases than they may create overhead on register variable resource utilization. This means that when inline function body is substituted at the point of function call, total number of variables used by the function also gets inserted. So the number of register going to be used for the variables will also get increased. So if after function inlining variable numbers increase drastically then it would surely cause an overhead on register utilization. • If you use too many inline functions then the size of the binary executable file will be large, because of the duplication of same code. • Too much inlining can also reduce your instruction cache hit rate, thus reducing the speed of instruction fetch from that of cache memory to that of primary memory. • Inline function may increase compile time overhead if someone changes the code inside the inline function then all the calling location has to be recompiled because compiler would require to replace all the code once again to reflect the changes, otherwise it will continue with old functionality. • Inline functions may not be useful for many embedded systems. Because in embedded systems code size is more important than speed. • Inline functions might cause thrashing because inlining might increase size of the binary executable file. Thrashing in memory causes performance of computer to degrade. It is also possible to define the inline function inside the class. In fact, all the functions defined inside the class are implicitly inline. Thus, all the restrictions of inline functions are also applied here. If you need to explicitly declare inline function in the class then just declare the function inside the class and define it outside the class using inline keyword.

Allocate storage space. Default allocation functions (single-object form). A new operator is used to create the object while a delete operator is used to delete the object. When the object is created by using the new operator, then the object will exist until we explicitly use the delete operator to delete the object. Therefore, we can say that the lifetime of the object is not related to the block structure of the program. Size in bytes of the requested memory block. This is the size of the type specifier in the new-expression when called automatically by such an expression. If this argument is zero, the function still returns a distinct non-null pointer on success (although dereferencing this pointer leads to undefined behavior). size_t is an integral type. The constant nothrow. This parameter is only used to distinguish it from the first version with an overloaded version. When the nothrow constant is passed as second parameter to operator new, operator new returns a null-pointer on failure instead of throwing a bad_alloc exception. nothrow_t is the type of constant nothrow. A pointer to an already-allocated memory block of the proper size. If called by a new-expression, the object is initialized (or constructed) at this location. For the first and second versions, function returns a pointer to the newly allocated storage space. For the third version, ptr is returned. • (1) throwing allocation: Allocates size bytes of storage, suitably aligned to represent any object of that size, and returns a non-null pointer to the first byte of this block. On failure, it throws a bad_alloc exception. • (2) nothrow allocation: Same as above (1), except that on failure it returns a null pointer instead of throwing an exception. The default definition allocates memory by calling the the first version: ::operator new (size). If replaced, both the first and second versions shall return pointers with identical properties. • (3) placement: Simply returns ptr (no storage is allocated). Notice though that, if the function is called by a new-expression, the proper initialization will be performed (for class objects, this includes calling its default constructor). The default allocation and deallocation functions are special components of the standard library; They have the following unique properties: • Global: All three versions of operator new are declared in the global namespace, not within the std namespace. • Implicit: The allocating versions ((1) and (2)) are implicitly declared in every translation unit of a C++ program, no matter whether header <new> is included or not. • Replaceable: The allocating versions ((1) and (2)) are also replaceable: A program may provide its own definition that replaces the one provided by default to produce the result described above, or can overload it for specific types. If set_new_handler has been used to define a new_handler function, this new-handler function is called by the default definitions of the allocating versions ((1) and (2)) if they fail to allocate the requested storage. operator new can be called explicitly as a regular function, but in C++, new is an operator with a very specific behavior: An expression with the new operator, first calls function operator new (i.e., this function) with the size of its type specifier as first argument, and if this is successful, it then automatically initializes or constructs the object (if needed). Finally, the expression evaluates as a pointer to the appropriate type. Modifies the storage referenced by the returned value. Calls to allocation and deallocation functions that reuse the same unit of storage shall occur in a single total order where each deallocation happens entirely before the next allocation. This shall also apply to the observable behavior of custom replacements for this function. The first version (1) throws bad_alloc if it fails to allocate storage. Otherwise, it throws no exceptions (no-throw guarantee).

In C++, classes and structs are blueprints that are used to create the instance of a class. Structs are used for lightweight objects such as Rectangle, color, Point, etc. Unlike class, structs in C++ are value type than reference type. It is useful if you have data that is not intended to be modified after creation of struct. C++ Structure is a collection of different data types. It is similar to the class that holds different types of data. A structure is declared by preceding the struct keyword followed by the identifier(structure name). Inside the curly braces, we can declare the member variables of different types. Consider the following situation: In the above case, Teacher is a structure contains three variables name, id, and age. When the structure is declared, no memory is allocated. When the variable of a structure is created, then the memory is allocated. Let's understand this scenario. Structures in C++ can contain two types of members: • Data Member: These members are normal C++ variables. We can create a structure with variables of different data types in C++. • Member Functions: These members are normal C++ functions. Along with variables, we can also include functions inside a structure declaration. Structure variable can be defined as: Teacher s; Here, s is a structure variable of type Teacher. When the structure variable is created, the memory will be allocated. Teacher structure contains one char variable and two integer variable. Therefore, the memory for one char variable is 1 byte and two ints will be 2*4 = 8. The total memory occupied by the s variable is 9 byte. The variable of the structure can be accessed by simply using the instance of the structure followed by the dot (.) operator and then the field of the structure. We are accessing the id field of the structure Teacher by using the dot(.) operator and assigns the value 4 to the id field. In C++, the struct keyword is optional before in declaration of a variable. In C, it is mandatory.

Enumeration is a user defined datatype in C/C++ language. It is used to assign names to the integral constants which makes a program easy to read and maintain. The keyword "enum" is used to declare an enumeration. It can be used for days of the week (SUNDAY, MONDAY, TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY, THURSDAY, FRIDAY and SATURDAY) , directions (NORTH, SOUTH, EAST and WEST) etc. The C++ enum constants are static and final implicitly. C++ Enums can be thought of as classes that have fixed set of constants. Any name given by user These are values of type flag The enum keyword is also used to define the variables of enum type. There are two ways to define the variables of enum type as follows Points to remember for C++ Enum: • enum improves type safety • enum can be easily used in switch • enum can be traversed • enum can have fields, constructors and methods • enum may implement many interfaces but cannot extend any class because it internally extends Enum class

A C++ virtual function is a member function in the base class that you redefine in a derived class. It is declared using the virtual keyword. It is used to tell the compiler to perform dynamic linkage or late binding on the function. There is a necessity to use the single pointer to refer to all the objects of the different classes. So, we create the pointer to the base class that refers to all the derived objects. But, when base class pointer contains the address of the derived class object, always executes the base class function. This issue can only be resolved by using the 'virtual' function. A 'virtual' is a keyword preceding the normal declaration of a function. When the function is made virtual, C++ determines which function is to be invoked at the runtime based on the type of the object pointed by the base class pointer. In late binding function call is resolved during runtime. Therefore compiler determines the type of object at runtime, and then binds the function call. • Virtual functions must be members of some class. • Virtual functions cannot be static members. • They are accessed through object pointers. • They can be a friend of another class. • A virtual function must be defined in the base class, even though it is not used. • The prototypes of a virtual function of the base class and all the derived classes must be identical. If the two functions with the same name but different prototypes, C++ will consider them as the overloaded functions. • We cannot have a virtual constructor, but we can have a virtual destructor. • Consider the situation when we don't use the virtual keyword. A virtual function is not used for performing any task. It only serves as a placeholder. When the function has no definition, such function is known as "do-nothing" function. The "do-nothing" function is known as a pure virtual function. A pure virtual function is a function declared in the base class that has no definition relative to the base class. A class containing the pure virtual function cannot be used to declare the objects of its own, such classes are known as abstract base classes. The main objective of the base class is to provide the traits to the derived classes and to create the base pointer used for achieving the runtime polymorphism.

Consider a situation, when we have two persons with the same name, jhon, in the same class. Whenever we need to differentiate them definitely we would have to use some additional information along with their name, like either the area, if they live in different area or their mother's or father's name, etc. Same situation can arise in your C++ applications. For example, you might be writing some code that has a function called xyz() and there is another library available which is also having same function xyz(). Now the compiler has no way of knowing which version of xyz() function you are referring to within your code. A namespace is designed to overcome this difficulty and is used as additional information to differentiate similar functions, classes, variables etc. with the same name available in different libraries. Using namespace, you can define the context in which names are defined. In essence, a namespace defines a scope. A namespace definition begins with the keyword namespace followed by the namespace name as follows: To call the namespace-enabled version of either function or variable, prepend (::) the namespace name as follows: You can also avoid prepending of namespaces with the using namespace directive. This directive tells the compiler that the subsequent code is making use of names in the specified namespace. A namespace can be defined in several parts and so a namespace is made up of the sum of its separately defined parts. The separate parts of a namespace can be spread over multiple files. So, if one part of the namespace requires a name defined in another file, that name must still be declared. Writing a following namespace definition either defines a new namespace or adds new elements to an existing one: Namespaces can be nested where you can define one namespace inside another name space as follows: • Namespace is a feature added in C++ and not present in C. • A namespace is a declarative region that provides a scope to the identifiers (names of the types, function, variables etc) inside it. • Multiple namespace blocks with the same name are allowed. All declarations within those blocks are declared in the named scope. • Namespace declarations appear only at global scope. • Namespace declarations can be nested within another namespace. • Namespace declarations don't have access specifiers. (Public or private) • No need to give semicolon after the closing brace of definition of namespace. • We can split the definition of namespace over several units.

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.

In while loop, condition is evaluated first and if it returns true then the statements inside while loop execute, this happens repeatedly until the condition returns false. When condition returns false, the control comes out of loop and jumps to the next statement in the program after while loop. The important point to note when using while loop is that we need to use increment or decrement statement inside while loop so that the loop variable gets changed on each iteration, and at some point condition returns false. This way we can end the execution of while loop otherwise the loop would execute indefinitely. A while loop that never stops is said to be the infinite while loop, when we give the condition in such a way so that it never returns false, then the loops becomes infinite and repeats itself indefinitely. • A while loop evaluates the condition • If the condition evaluates to true, the code inside the while loop is executed. • The condition is evaluated again. • This process continues until the condition is false. • When the condition evaluates to false, the loop terminates. Do not forget to increase the variable used in the condition, otherwise the loop will never end!

In computer programming, loops are used to repeat a block of code. For example, when you are displaying number from 1 to 100 you may want set the value of a variable to 1 and display it 100 times, increasing its value by 1 on each loop iteration. When you know exactly how many times you want to loop through a block of code, use the for loop instead of a while loop. A for loop is a repetition control structure that allows you to efficiently write a loop that needs to execute a specific number of times. initializes variables and is executed only once. if true, the body of for loop is executed, if false, the for loop is terminated. updates the value of initialized variables and again checks the condition. A new range-based for loop was introduced to work with collections such as arrays and vectors.

A friend function of a class is defined outside that class' scope but it has the right to access all private and protected members of the class. Even though the prototypes for friend functions appear in the class definition, friends are not member functions. A friend can be a function, function template, or member function, or a class or class template, in which case the entire class and all of its members are friends. If a function is defined as a friend function in C++ programming language, then the protected and private data of a class can be accessed using the function. By using the keyword friend compiler knows the given function is a friend function. For accessing the data, the declaration of a friend function should be done inside the body of a class starting with the keyword friend. In the above declaration, the friend function is preceded by the keyword friend. The function can be defined anywhere in the program like a normal C++ function. The function definition does not use either the keyword friend or scope resolution operator. • The function is not in the scope of the class to which it has been declared as a friend. • It cannot be called using the object as it is not in the scope of that class. • It can be invoked like a normal function without using the object. • It cannot access the member names directly and has to use an object name and dot membership operator with the member name. • It can be declared either in the private or the public part. A friend class can access both private and protected members of the class in which it has been declared as friend.

A cast is a special operator that forces one data type to be converted into another. As an operator, a cast is unary and has the same precedence as any other unary operator. Converting an expression of a given type into another type is known as type-casting. The most general cast supported by most of the C++ compilers is as follows: Where type is the desired data type. There are other casting operators supported by C++, they are listed below: • const_cast<type> (expr): The const_cast operator is used to explicitly override const and/or volatile in a cast. The target type must be the same as the source type except for the alteration of its const or volatile attributes. This type of casting manipulates the const attribute of the passed object, either to be set or removed. • dynamic_cast<type> (expr): The dynamic_cast performs a runtime cast that verifies the validity of the cast. If the cast cannot be made, the cast fails and the expression evaluates to null. A dynamic_cast performs casts on polymorphic types and can cast a A* pointer into a B* pointer only if the object being pointed to actually is a B object. • reinterpret_cast<type> (expr): The reinterpret_cast operator changes a pointer to any other type of pointer. It also allows casting from pointer to an integer type and vice versa. • static_cast<type> (expr): The static_cast operator performs a nonpolymorphic cast. For example, it can be used to cast a base class pointer into a derived class pointer. All of the above-mentioned casting operators will be used while working with classes and objects. For now, try the following example to understand a simple cast operators available in C++. Copy and paste the following C++ program in test.cpp file and compile and run this program.

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.

Deallocate storage space. Default deallocation functions (single-object form). A delete operator is used to deallocate memory space that is dynamically created using the new operator, calloc and malloc() function, etc., at the run time of a program in C++ language. In other words, a delete operator is used to release array and non-array (pointer) objects from the heap, which the new operator dynamically allocates to put variables on heap memory. We can use either the delete operator or delete [ ] operator in our program to delete the deallocated space. A delete operator has a void return type, and hence, it does not return a value. A pointer to the memory block to be released, type-casted to a void*. If this is a null-pointer, the function does nothing. If not null, this pointer value should have been returned by a previous call to operator new, and have not yet been released by a previous call to this function. If the implementation has strict pointer safety, this pointer shall also be a safely-derived pointer. The constant nothrow. This parameter is ignored in the default definition. nothrow_t is the type of constant nothrow. A void pointer. The value is ignored in the default definition. The first argument passed to the allocation function when the memory block was allocated. std::size_t is an unsigned integral type. This function does not return any value. (1) ordinary delete: Deallocates the memory block pointed by ptr (if not null), releasing the storage space previously allocated to it by a call to operator new and rendering that pointer location invalid. (2) nothrow delete: Same as above (1). The default definition calls the first version (1): ::operator delete(ptr). (3) placement delete: Does nothing. The default allocation and deallocation functions are special components of the standard library; They have the following unique properties: Global: All overloads of operator delete are declared in the global namespace, not within the std namespace. Implicit: The deallocating versions (i.e., all but (3)) are implicitly declared in every translation unit of a C++ program, no matter whether header <new> is included or not. Replaceable: The deallocating versions (i.e., all but (3)) are also replaceable: A program may provide its own definition that replaces the one provided by default or can overload it for specific types. The custom definition shall deallocate the storage referenced by ptr. operator delete is a regular function that can be called explicitly just as any other function. But in C++, delete is an operator with a very specific behavior: An expression with the delete operator, first calls the appropriate destructor (for class types), and then calls a deallocation function. The deallocation function for a class object is a member function named operator delete, if it exists. In all other cases it is a global function operator delete (i.e., this function -- or a more specific overload). If the delete expression is preceded by the scope operator (i.e., ::operator delete), only global deallocation functions are considered. delete expressions that use global deallocation functions always use the signature that takes either a pointer (such as (1)), or a pointer and a size (such as (4)). Preferring always the version with size (4), unless an overload provides a better match for the pointer type. The other signatures ((2) and (3)) are never called by a delete-expression (the delete operator always calls the ordinary version of this function, and exactly once for each of its arguments). These other signatures are only called automatically by a new-expression when their object construction fails (e.g., if the constructor of an object throws while being constructed by a new-expression with nothrow, the matching operator delete function accepting a nothrow argument is called). Non-member deallocation functions shall not be declared in a namespace scope other than the global namespace. Modifies the storage referenced by ptr. Calls to allocation and deallocation functions that reuse the same unit of storage shall occur in a single total order where each deallocation happens before the next allocation. This shall also apply to the observable behavior of custom replacements for this function. No-throw guarantee: this function never throws exceptions. Notice that either an invalid value of ptr, or a value for size that does not match the one passed to the allocation function, causes undefined behavior. Similarly, we can delete the block of allocated memory space using the delete [] operator. delete [ ] pointer_variable; // delete [] ptr; It deallocate for an array.