Data Structures and Algorithms in C++, Second Edition

Chapter 1. A C++ Primer

Contents

1.1 Basic C++ Programming Elements	2
1.1.1 A Simple C++ Program	2
1.1.2 Fundamental Types	4
1.1.3 Pointers, Arrays, and Structures	7
1.1.4 Named Constants, Scope, and Namespaces	13
1.2 Expressions	16
1.2.1 Changing Types through Casting	20
1.3 Control Flow	23
1.4 Functions	26
1.4.1 Argument Passing	28
1.4.2 Overloading and Inlining	30
1.5 Classes	32
1.5.1 Class Structure	33
1.5.2 Constructors and Destructors	37
1.5.3 Classes and Memory Allocation	40
1.5.4 Class Friends and Class Members	43
1.5.5 The Standard Template Library	45
1.6 C++ Program and File Organization	47
1.6.1 An Example Program	48
1.7 Writing a C++ Program	53
1.7.1 Design	54
1.7.2 Pseudo-Code	54
1.7.3 Coding	55
1.7.4 Testing and Debugging	57
1.8 Exercises	60

Basic C++ Programming Elements

Building data structures and algorithms requires communicating instructions to a computer, and an excellent way to perform such communication is using a high-level computer language, such as C++. C++ evolved from the programming language C, and has, over time, undergone further evolution and development from its original definition. It has incorporated many features that were not part of C, such as symbolic constants, in-line function substitution, reference types, parametric polymorphism through templates, and exceptions (which are discussed later). As a result, C++ has grown to be a complex programming language. Fortunately, we do not need to know ...