All Around Topics for C++ Users

This post is written based on a popular programming website.

1, Variables

• local vs global vs Constants

2, Operators

• Scope resolution ::, sizeof
• Member access   ".", "->"
• Bitwise                &, |, ^, ~, >>, <<
• Conditional         ?, :
• Operator Precedence

3, Control Structures

• if else
• return
• goto
• exit
• break
• continue

4, Arrays

• pass array as parameters - int sum(int[]);
• array of strings - char weekend[2] [9] = {"Sunday", "Saturday" };
• array of objects - objects are user defined data type

5, Functions

• pass by value
• pass by reference

6, Class

• Access specifiers - private, public, protected
• Friend function - have access to private/protected members of a class, a bridge between classes.
• Constructors
• Default Constructors - no parameters or all of default values.
• Overloading Constructors - increase flexibility of a class by having more constructors.
• Destructors
• Nested classes - Not given importance because of the inheritance.
• Local classes - a class defined inside a function.

7, Predefined Functions

• I/O Functions - scanf, vsprintf, fread, setbuf
• String & Character Functions - strcpy, strlen, memset 
• Mathematical Functions - cos, floor, sin, sqrt
• Time, Data & Localization Functions - asctime, localtime, strftime
• Dynamic Allocation Functions - calloc, free, malloc, realloc
• Utility Functions - abort, bsearch, qsort, rand, exit

8, Object Oriented Programming (OOPS)

• Object oriented analysis (OOA) - specify real world requirements, behaviour & interactions.
• Object oriented design (OOD) - convert analysis into a hierarchy of objects.
• Object oriented programming (OOP) - implement objects using C++.

9, OOPS

• Objects - instance of a class that interact with each other at runtime.
• Classes - data members + member functions
• Inheritance - visibility of base and derived class members.
• Dynamic Binding - aka "late binding", "runtime binding"
• Polymorphism
• Message passing - ?
• Encapsulation

10, Inheritance Con't

• Single inheritance
• Multiple inheritance - a class is derived from more than one base class.
• Hierarchical inheritance - two or more classes are inherited from a single class.
• Multilevel inheritance - a derived class is derived from another derived class.
• Hybrid inheritance - one or more types of inheritance are combined.
• Virtual inheritance - solve "diamond problem".

11, Polymorphism Con't

• Compile time polymorphism - aka "function overloading" that depends on the arguments. 
• Run time polymorphism - late binding by using virtual function to override in derived class.

12, Encapsulation Con't

• Data abstraction - using data without knowing how its stored.
• Function abstraction - using function without knowing how its implemented.

13, Type Casting

• static_cast - convert a base class pointers to the derived class, vice versa.
• reinterpret_cast - convert a pointer of one type to another unrelated type.
• const_cast - add or remove a "const" modifier from a type. 
• dynamic_cast - used with pointers and objects to do casting at runtime. [RTTI]
• typeid - determine the class (ex, typeid(pA).name()) of an object at runtime. [RTTI]

14, Forward declaration

• can only use the pointer-to-that-class type. 
• avoid circular references. 
• not sufficient if you need to use the actual class type. (base class or use member functions)

*********************************************************************************

Special Topics

Pointers - declare as TYPE *NAME

• reference operator - "&"
• dereference operator - "*" or "->"

Structures

• By default, all members of a struct are "public", members in function of a struct are "private".

Unions

• At at instance it contains only a single object.

Enumerations

• create new data types that can take on only a restricted range of values.

typedef

• used to make the code more portable, easy to change data type.

comments

• // 
• /**/

Function overloading 

• Define multiple function with the same name but perform different tasks based on the number, type of arguments of that function. @compile time.

Operator overloading

• Define additional task to an operator in reference to a class.
• Cannot overload: member access operator, scope resolution operator, conditional operator. 

Virtual functions

• executes based on the type of object pointed by the base pointer at runtime and not on the type of pointer.

Exception handling

• "try", "throw", "catch"
• try{ if(1/r)else{throw(r)} } catch(int r) { ... }

Namespace

• a new concept introduced by the ANSI C++ standards committee.
• namespace namespace_name{ //declaration of var, func, classes, etc. }