Like other types of diagrams, UML Class diagrams allow you to visualize, in this case, the design of a class. Since classes are at the root of Object Oriented Design, this is one of the most common diagrams you will find yourself creating. A class diagram will contain: The class name, The class’s attributes, The…
Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a general purpose modelling language whose main purpose is to to define a standard way to visualize how a software application/system is to be designed. UML is an approved standard since 2005 which makes it easy to find tools and users which can share documents between users. UML is not…
You can extend almost any class you want. So once you’ve defined a base class, you just need to know enough about it, and how you want to derive from it. Considering our GenericGeometric class from before, let’s look at deriving a Circle class from it. In our header file we will have: Notice two…
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…
We’ve talked about arrays and objects before, but now we’re going to look at an array of objects. Consider a situation where you had a class called Student. While you would often need to work with a singular student, you could very likely also need to have multiple students, for example, if you were talking…
We’ve talked about abstraction before when working with functions. The idea being using a simple to remember name, to hide a (potentially) complex process involving lots of steps. Classes are often used in the same way. They should be thought of as a “black box” which the programmer doesn’t need to worry about how the…
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…
