Professional C++, 4th Edition

9Mastering Classes and Objects

WHAT’S IN THIS CHAPTER?

• How to use dynamic memory allocation in objects
• What the copy-and-swap idiom is
• What rvalues and rvalue references are
• How move semantics can increase performance
• What the rule of zero means
• The different kinds of data members you can have (static, const, reference)
• The different kinds of methods you can implement (static, const, inline)
• The details of method overloading
• How to work with default arguments
• How to use nested classes
• How to make classes friends of other classes
• What operator overloading is
• How to write separate interface and implementation classes

WROX.COM DOWNLOADS FOR THIS CHAPTER

Please note that all the code examples for this chapter are available as a part of this chapter’s code download on the book’s website at www.wrox.com/go/proc++4e on the Download Code tab.

Chapter 8 started the discussion on classes and objects. Now it’s time to master their subtleties so you can use them to their full potential. By reading this chapter, you will learn how to manipulate and exploit some of the most powerful aspects of the C++ language in order to write safe, effective, and useful classes.

Many of the concepts in this chapter arise in advanced C++ programming, especially in the C++ Standard Library.

FRIENDS

C++ allows classes to declare that other classes, member functions of other classes, or non-member functions are friends, and can access protected and private data members and methods. For example, ...