C++ Programming Code Examples

Iterators are just like pointers used to access the container elements. Iterators are one of the four pillars of the Standard Template Library or STL in C++. An iterator is used to point to the memory address of the STL container classes. For better understanding, you can relate them with a pointer, to some extent. Iterators act as a bridge that connects algorithms to STL containers and allows the modifications of the data present inside the container. They allow you to iterate over the container, access and assign the values, and run different operators over them, to get the desired result. • Iterators are used to traverse from one element to another element, a process is known as iterating through the container. • The main advantage of an iterator is to provide a common interface for all the containers type. • Iterators make the algorithm independent of the type of the container used. • Iterators provide a generic approach to navigate through the elements of a container. Operator (*) : The '*' operator returns the element of the current position pointed by the iterator. Operator (++) : The '++' operator increments the iterator by one. Therefore, an iterator points to the next element of the container. Operator (==) and Operator (!=) : Both these operators determine whether the two iterators point to the same position or not. Operator (=) : The '=' operator assigns the iterator. Iterators can be smart pointers which allow to iterate over the complex data structures. A Container provides its iterator type. Therefore, we can say that the iterators have the common interface with different container type. The container classes provide two basic member functions that allow to iterate or move through the elements of a container: begin(): The begin() function returns an iterator pointing to the first element of the container. end(): The end() function returns an iterator pointing to the past-the-last element of the container. Input Iterator: An input iterator is an iterator used to access the elements from the container, but it does not modify the value of a container. Operators used for an input iterator are: Increment operator(++), Equal operator(==), Not equal operator(!=), Dereference operator(*). Output Iterator: An output iterator is an iterator used to modify the value of a container, but it does not read the value from a container. Therefore, we can say that an output iterator is a write-only iterator. Operators used for an output iterator are: Increment operator(++), Assignment operator(=). Forward Iterator: A forward iterator is an iterator used to read and write to a container. It is a multi-pass iterator. Operators used for a Forward iterator are: Increment operator(++), Assignment operator(=), Equal operator(=), Not equal operator(!=). Bidirectional iterator: A bidirectional iterator is an iterator supports all the features of a forward iterator plus it adds one more feature, i.e., decrement operator(--). We can move backward by decrementing an iterator. Operators used for a Bidirectional iterator are: Increment operator(++), Assignment operator(=), Equal operator(=), Not equal operator(!=), Decrement operator(--). Random Access Iterator: A Random Access iterator is an iterator provides random access of an element at an arbitrary location. It has all the features of a bidirectional iterator plus it adds one more feature, i.e., pointer addition and pointer subtraction to provide random access to an element. Following are the disadvantages of an iterator: • If we want to move from one data structure to another at the same time, iterators won't work. • If we want to update the structure which is being iterated, an iterator won?t allow us to do because of the way it stores the position. • If we want to backtrack while processing through a list, the iterator will not work in this case. Following are the advantages of an iterator: • Ease in programming: It is convenient to use iterators rather than using a subscript operator[] to access the elements of a container. If we use subscript operator[] to access the elements, then we need to keep the track of the number of elements added at the runtime, but this would not happen in the case of an iterator. • Code Reusability: A code can be reused if we use iterators. In the above example, if we replace vector with the list, and then the subscript operator[] would not work to access the elements as the list does not support the random access. However, we use iterators to access the elements, then we can also access the list elements. • Dynamic Processing: C++ iterators provide the facility to add or delete the data dynamically.

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.

In C++, vectors are used to store elements of similar data types. However, unlike arrays, the size of a vector can grow dynamically. That is, we can change the size of the vector during the execution of a program as per our requirements. Vectors are part of the C++ Standard Template Library. To use vectors, we need to include the vector header file in our program. The type parameter <T> specifies the type of the vector. It can be any primitive data type such as int, char, float, etc. We are initializing the vector by providing values directly to the vector. vector1 is initialized with values 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Here, 5 is the size of the vector and 8 is the value. This code creates an int vector with size 5 and initializes the vector with the value of 8. So, the vector is equivalent to The vector class provides various methods to perform different operations on vectors. Add Elements to a Vector: To add a single element into a vector, we use the push_back() function. It inserts an element into the end of the vector. Access Elements of a Vector: In C++, we use the index number to access the vector elements. Here, we use the at() function to access the element from the specified index. Change Vector Element: We can change an element of the vector using the same at() function. Delete Elements from C++ Vectors: To delete a single element from a vector, we use the pop_back() function. In C++, the vector header file provides various functions that can be used to perform different operations on a vector. • size(): returns the number of elements present in the vector. • clear(): removes all the elements of the vector. • front(): returns the first element of the vector. • back(): returns the last element of the vector. • empty(): returns 1 (true) if the vector is empty. • capacity(): check the overall size of a vector. Vector iterators are used to point to the memory address of a vector element. In some ways, they act like pointers. We can initialize vector iterators using the begin() and end() functions. The begin() function returns an iterator that points to the first element of the vector. The end() function points to the theoretical element that comes after the final element of the vector.

#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.

Templates are powerful features of C++ which allows us to write generic programs. Similar to function templates, we can use class templates to create a single class to work with different data types. Class templates come in handy as they can make our code shorter and more manageable. A class template starts with the keyword template followed by template parameter(s) inside <> which is followed by the class declaration. template argument a member variable T is the template argument which is a placeholder for the data type used, and class is a keyword. Inside the class body, a member variable var and a member function functionName() are both of type T. Creating a class template object: Once we've declared and defined a class template, we can create its objects in other classes or functions (such as the main() function) with the following syntax: Defining a class member outside the class template: Suppose we need to define a function outside of the class template. We can do this with the following code: Notice that the code template <class T> is repeated while defining the function outside of the class. This is necessary and is part of the syntax. C++ class templates with multiple parameters: In C++, we can use multiple template parameters and even use default arguments for those parameters.

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.

Assign vector content. Assigns new contents to the vector, replacing its current contents, and modifying its size accordingly. The C++ function std::vector::assign() assign new values to the vector elements by replacing old ones. It modifies size of vector if necessary. If memory allocation happens allocation is allocated by internal allocator. Input iterators to the initial and final positions in a sequence. The range used is [first,last), which includes all the elements between first and last, including the element pointed by first but not the element pointed by last. The function template argument InputIterator shall be an input iterator type that points to elements of a type from which value_type objects can be constructed. New size for the container. Member type size_type is an unsigned integral type. Value to fill the container with. Each of the n elements in the container will be initialized to a copy of this value. Member type value_type is the type of the elements in the container, defined in vector as an alias of its first template parameter (T). An initializer_list object. The compiler will automatically construct such objects from initializer list declarators. Member type value_type is the type of the elements in the container, defined in vector as an alias of its first template parameter (T). This function does not return any value. In the range version (1), the new contents are elements constructed from each of the elements in the range between first and last, in the same order. In the fill version (2), the new contents are n elements, each initialized to a copy of val. In the initializer list version (3), the new contents are copies of the values passed as initializer list, in the same order. The internal allocator is used (through its traits) to allocate and deallocate storage if a reallocation happens. It is also used to destroy all existing elements, and to construct the new ones. Any elements held in the container before the call are destroyed and replaced by newly constructed elements (no assignments of elements take place). This causes an automatic reallocation of the allocated storage space if -and only if- the new vector size surpasses the current vector capacity. Linear on initial and final sizes (destructions, constructions). Additionally, in the range version (1), if InputIterator is not at least of a forward iterator category (i.e., it is just an input iterator) the new capacity cannot be determined beforehand and the operation incurs in additional logarithmic complexity in the new size (reallocations while growing). All iterators, pointers and references related to this container are invalidated. All copied elements are accessed. The container is modified. All contained elements are modified. Basic guarantee: if an exception is thrown, the container is in a valid state. If allocator_traits::construct is not supported with the appropriate arguments for the element constructions, or if the range specified by [first,last) is not valid, it causes undefined behavior.

Return iterator to beginning. Returns an iterator pointing to the first element in the vector. Notice that, unlike member vector::front, which returns a reference to the first element, this function returns a random access iterator pointing to it. If the container is empty, the returned iterator value shall not be dereferenced. The C++ function std::vector::begin() returns a random access iterator pointing to the first element of the vector. This function does not accept any parameter. Function returns an iterator to the beginning of the sequence container. If the vector object is const-qualified, the function returns a const_iterator. Otherwise, it returns an iterator. Member types iterator and const_iterator are random access iterator types (pointing to an element and to a const element, respectively). Constant No changes The container is accessed (neither the const nor the non-const versions modify the container). No contained elements are accessed by the call, but the iterator returned can be used to access or modify elements. Concurrently accessing or modifying different elements is safe. No-throw guarantee: this member function never throws exceptions. The copy construction or assignment of the returned iterator is also guaranteed to never throw.

Compute partial sums of range. Assigns to every element in the range starting at result the partial sum of the corresponding elements in the range [first,last). This function assigns a partial sum of the corresponding elements of an array to every position of the second array. It returns the partial sum of all the set of values lying between [first, last) and stores it in another array b. Input iterators to the initial and final positions in a sequence. The range used is [first,last), which contains all the elements between first and last, including the element pointed by first but not the element pointed by last. Output iterator to the initial position in the destination sequence where the partial sums are stored. The range starts at result and shall have a size large enough to contain as many elements as the range above ([first,last)). Binary operation taking two elements of the type pointed by the InputIterator as arguments, and returning the result of the replacement for the sum operation. This can either be a function pointer or a function object. Function returns an iterator pointing to past the last element of the destination sequence where resulting elements have been stored, or result if [first,last) is an empty range. If x represents an element in [first,last) and y represents an element in result, the ys can be calculated as: y0 = x0 y1 = x0 + x1 y2 = x0 + x1 + x2 y3 = x0 + x1 + x2 + x3 y4 = x0 + x1 + x2 + x3 + x4 ... ... ... The default operation is to add the elements up, but a different operation can be specified as binary_op instead. Linear in the distance between first and last, minus one (in number of additions or applications of binary_op). The elements in the range [first,last) are accessed (each object is accessed exactly once). The elements in the range beginning at result are modified. Throws if any of binary_op, the assignments or an operation on an iterator throws. Note that invalid arguments cause undefined behavior.

A C++ template is a powerful feature added to C++. It allows you to define the generic classes and generic functions and thus provides support for generic programming. Generic programming is a technique where generic types are used as parameters in algorithms so that they can work for a variety of data types. We can define a template for a function. For example, if we have an add() function, we can create versions of the add function for adding the int, float or double type values. a placeholder name specify a generic type Where Ttype: It is a placeholder name for a data type used by the function. It is used within the function definition. It is only a placeholder that the compiler will automatically replace this placeholder with the actual data type. class: A class keyword is used to specify a generic type in a template declaration. • Generic functions use the concept of a function template. Generic functions define a set of operations that can be applied to the various types of data. • The type of the data that the function will operate on depends on the type of the data passed as a parameter. • For example, Quick sorting algorithm is implemented using a generic function, it can be implemented to an array of integers or array of floats. • A Generic function is created by using the keyword template. The template defines what function will do. Function templates with multiple parameters: We can use more than one generic type in the template function by using the comma to separate the list. Overloading a function template: We can overload the generic function means that the overloaded template functions can differ in the parameter list. Generic functions perform the same operation for all the versions of a function except the data type differs.

Access element. Returns a reference to the element at position n in the vector container. A similar member function, vector::at, has the same behavior as this operator function, except that vector::at is bound-checked and signals if the requested position is out of range by throwing an out_of_range exception. Portable programs should never call this function with an argument n that is out of range, since this causes undefined behavior. Position of an element in the container. Notice that the first element has a position of 0 (not 1). Member type size_type is an unsigned integral type. Function returns the element at the specified position in the vector. If the vector object is const-qualified, the function returns a const_reference. Otherwise, it returns a reference. Member types reference and const_reference are the reference types to the elements of the container (see vector member types). Constant No changes The container is accessed (neither the const nor the non-const versions modify the container). The reference returned can be used to access or modify elements. Concurrently accessing or modifying different elements is safe. If the container size is greater than n, the function never throws exceptions (no-throw guarantee). Otherwise, the behavior is undefined.

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.

Return iterator to end. Returns an iterator referring to the past-the-end element in the vector container. The past-the-end element is the theoretical element that would follow the last element in the vector. It does not point to any element, and thus shall not be dereferenced. Because the ranges used by functions of the standard library do not include the element pointed by their closing iterator, this function is often used in combination with vector::begin to specify a range including all the elements in the container. If the container is empty, this function returns the same as vector::begin. This function does not accept any parameter. Function returns an iterator to the element past the end of the sequence. If the vector object is const-qualified, the function returns a const_iterator. Otherwise, it returns an iterator. Member types iterator and const_iterator are random access iterator types (pointing to an element and to a const element, respectively). To use vector, include <vector> header. It does not point to the last element, thus to get the last element we can use vector::end()-1. Constant No changes The container is accessed (neither the const nor the non-const versions modify the container). No contained elements are accessed by the call, but the iterator returned can be used to access or modify elements. Concurrently accessing or modifying different elements is safe. No-throw guarantee: this member function never throws exceptions. The copy construction or assignment of the returned iterator is also guaranteed to never throw.

Return size. Returns the number of elements in the vector. This is the number of actual objects held in the vector, which is not necessarily equal to its storage capacity. vector::size() is a library function of "vector" header, it is used to get the size of a vector, it returns the total number of elements in the vector. The dynamic array can be created by using a vector in C++. One or more elements can be inserted into or removed from the vector at the run time that increases or decreases the size of the vector. The size or length of the vector can be counted using any loop or the built-in function named size(). This function does not accept any parameter. Function returns the number of elements in the container. Member type size_type is an unsigned integral type. Constant No changes The container is accessed. No contained elements are accessed: concurrently accessing or modifying them is safe. No-throw guarantee: this member function never throws exceptions.