C++ Programming Code Examples

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.

In computer programming, we use the if statement to run a block code only when a certain condition is met. An if statement can be followed by an optional else statement, which executes when the boolean expression is false. There are three forms of if...else statements in C++: • if statement, • if...else statement, • if...else if...else statement, The if statement evaluates the condition inside the parentheses ( ). If the condition evaluates to true, the code inside the body of if is executed. If the condition evaluates to false, the code inside the body of if is skipped. The if..else statement evaluates the condition inside the parenthesis. If the condition evaluates true, the code inside the body of if is executed, the code inside the body of else is skipped from execution. If the condition evaluates false, the code inside the body of else is executed, the code inside the body of if is skipped from execution. The if...else statement is used to execute a block of code among two alternatives. However, if we need to make a choice between more than two alternatives, we use the if...else if...else statement. • If condition1 evaluates to true, the code block 1 is executed. • If condition1 evaluates to false, then condition2 is evaluated. • If condition2 is true, the code block 2 is executed. • If condition2 is false, the code block 3 is executed. There can be more than one else if statement but only one if and else statements. In C/C++ if-else-if ladder helps user decide from among multiple options. The C/C++ if statements are executed from the top down. As soon as one of the conditions controlling the if is true, the statement associated with that if is executed, and the rest of the C else-if ladder is bypassed. If none of the conditions is true, then the final else statement will be executed. Working of the if-else-if ladder: 1. Control falls into the if block. 2. The flow jumps to Condition 1. 3. Condition is tested. If Condition yields true, goto Step 4. If Condition yields false, goto Step 5. 4. The present block is executed. Goto Step 7. 5. The flow jumps to Condition 2. If Condition yields true, goto step 4. If Condition yields false, goto Step 6. 6. The flow jumps to Condition 3. If Condition yields true, goto step 4. If Condition yields false, execute else block. Goto Step 7. 7. Exits the if-else-if ladder. • The if else ladder statement in C++ programming language is used to check set of conditions in sequence. • This is useful when we want to selectively executes one code block(out of many) based on certain conditions. • It allows us to check for multiple condition expressions and execute different code blocks for more than two conditions. • A condition expression is tested only when all previous if conditions in if-else ladder is false. • If any of the conditional expression evaluates to true, then it will execute the corresponding code block and exits whole if-else ladder.

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 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 return statement ends the processing of the current function and returns control to the caller of the function. A value-returning function should include a return statement, containing an expression. If an expression is not given on a return statement in a function declared with a non-void return type, the compiler issues an error message. If the data type of the expression is different from the function return type, conversion of the return value takes place as if the value of the expression were assigned to an object with the same function return type. For a function of return type void, a return statement is not strictly necessary. If the end of such a function is reached without encountering a return statement, control is passed to the caller as if a return statement without an expression were encountered. In other words, an implicit return takes place upon completion of the final statement, and control automatically returns to the calling function. If a return statement is used, it must not contain an expression. The following are examples of return statements:

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.

The C++ comments are statements that are not executed by the compiler. The comments in C++ programming can be used to provide explanation of the code, variable, method or class. If we write comments on our code, it will be easier for us to understand the code in the future. Also, it will be easier for your fellow developers to understand the code. By the help of comments, you can hide the program code also. There are two types of comments in C++: • Single Line comment • Multi Line comment The single line comment starts with // (double slash). C++ multi line comment is used to comment multiple lines of code. It is surrounded by slash and asterisk (/* ..... */). Comments shouldn't be the substitute for a way to explain poorly written code in English. We should always write well-structured and self-explanatory code. And, then use comments.

#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.

Test whether the elements in two ranges are equal. Compares the elements in the range [first1,last1) with those in the range beginning at first2, and returns true if all of the elements in both ranges match. C++ Algorithm equal()function compares the elements in both the containers and returns a true value if all the elements in both the containers are found to be matching. The first range is from [first1,last1) and the second starts from first2. The elements are compared using operator== (or pred, in version (2)). Input iterators to the initial and final positions of the first sequence. The range used is [first1,last1), which contains all the elements between first1 and last1, including the element pointed by first1 but not the element pointed by last1. Input iterator to the initial position of the second sequence. The comparison includes up to as many elements of this sequence as those in the range [first1,last1). Binary function that accepts two elements as argument (one of each of the two sequences, in the same order), and returns a value convertible to bool. The value returned indicates whether the elements are considered to match in the context of this function. The function shall not modify any of its arguments. This can either be a function pointer or a function object. Function returns true if all the elements in the range [first1,last1) compare equal to those of the range starting at first2, and false otherwise. Up to linear in the distance between first1 and last1: Compares elements until a mismatch is found. Some (or all) of the objects in both ranges are accessed (once at most). Throws if any of the element comparisons (or pred) throws, or if any of the operations on iterators throws. Note that invalid parameters cause undefined behavior.