Ivor Horton's Beginning Visual C++®2008

Chapter 7. Defining Your Own Data Types

This chapter is about creating your own data types to suit your particular problem. It's also about creating objects, the building blocks of object-oriented programming. An object can seem a bit mysterious to the uninitiated but, as you will see in this chapter, an object can be just an instance of one of your own data types.

In this chapter, you will learn about:

• Structures and how they are used

• Classes and how they are used

• The basic components of a class and how you define class types

• Creating and using objects of a class

• Controlling access to members of a class

• Constructors and how to create them

• The default constructor

• References in the context of classes

• The copy constructor and how it is implemented

• How C++/CLI classes differ from native C++ classes

• Properties in a C++/CLI class and how you define and use them

• Literal fields and how you define and use them

• initonly fields and how you define and use them

• What a static constructor is

The struct in C++

A structure is a user-defined type that you define using the keyword struct, so it is often referred to as a struct. The struct originated back in the C language, and C++ incorporates and expands on the C struct. A struct in C++ is functionally replaceable by a class insofar as anything you can do with a struct you can also achieve by using a class; however, because Windows was written in C before C++ became widely used, the struct appears pervasively in Windows programming. It is also widely used today, ...