Let’s look a little closer at constructors than we did in our initial Defining Classes for Objects example. Anytime you create an object, a constructor is called. If you overload your constructor, C++ will pick the right constructor to call, just like it does when you overload a function. Constructors must have the same name…
Once you create your class, you need to create an object. The Class is just a blueprint for the program to follow. It doesn’t do anything until you create an object based off of that blueprint. Think of a house. If you have a house blueprint, all you have are some sheets of paper or…
Because an array is used to store a collection of data, it is important to know how to use them efficiently. Searching Arrays We often need to search an array to see if a value is inside of it or not. While some languages do this for you, C++, because of it’s age, doesn’t. Linear…
You pass an array to a function, very similarly as to how you would pass a non-array variable. There are two differences. You need to include square brackets after the array name so C++ knows its and array Realize that you are passing by reference. The book recommends that you always pass the size of…
An array isn’t a “data type” like you’d normally think of one. It is a collection of the same type of data, similar to a List in Python. Behind the scenes, there are a few things you need to know however: In an array, all elements must be of the same data type. When constructed,…
Calling a function has a performance penalty because you have to create variables, specify scope, pause the current variables and push data onto the call stack, just to name a few reasons. C++ allows you to define an inline function, which should be short, to improve the performance. In doing so, the compiler will actually…
C++ has added the ability to have default arguments be defined when you declare your functions. To define a default value, you must specify the parameter name, and then assign it a value. If someone calls this function without passing an argument to the function, the computer will use 20 as the parameter. If they…
In previous examples, we’ve had to write our functions above the place where they are called. However, many developers like to place main as their first function they see, so it’s easier to find. Or they may not know the order that the function will be called. C and C++ allow you to define a…
