We’ve looked at Constructors in C++ to create an object, and building an object with new. However, what happens when we no longer need that object? That’s where a destructor is called. It is built into all objects, and if you don’t define one, a default one will be called for you. The destructor’s job…
this, is a special keyword and pointer. It points to the very object is it in… you may think of it as self-referencing to it’s own object. This is important in case a class method has a parameter name with the same name as a class property. If the keyword this is not used, then…
While you can create pointers with ordinary primitive objects, that’s not where the real power of pointers lie. The power is to reference objects that we create, so they don’t take up too much space in lower memory locations, and we can work on passing them around. To create an object dynamically on the heap,…
A C++ program may return a pointer, just is may have them passed to the function. To specify a pointer, you define that data type in the return type. For example: The book gives an example on how to return an array this way, however, as it uses an existing array, the array is already…
We’ve seen the benefits of passing variables by reference to a function. It allows you to change their value inside the function. Well, when we pass by reference, this is essentially using pointers – you just didn’t realize it. Therefore you can have instances like: Alternatively I can write it with passing the memory address…
A constant pointer means that the memory location will not change, not that the value at that memory location will not change. Consider the following code. What do you think will happen? Using const will make sure you always point to the right place. Using const with Pointers in C++ was originally found on Access…
OK, defining a new Datatype might be a bit of a stretch…how about, defining aliases? You can use the typedef keyword to define a new aliase for an existing data type in C++. The general form is: Let’s say you have experience with another language and you want to use a datatype name that they…
A Pointer variable, just called a pointer, holds the memory address of data that is stored. Through the pointer, you can read the address, and thus indirectly access the value of the variable. To access a value, you use the dereference operators (*) to get the value stored at that memory address. To store a…
