An Incomplete C++ Primer University of Wyoming MA 5310 Professor Craig C. Douglas http://www.mgnet.org/~douglas/classes/na-sc/notes/c++primer.pdf
C++ is a legacy programming language, as is other languages such as Language First appeared Fortran mid 1950 s C 1970 Pascal mid 1970 s Modula 2 late 1970 s Java 1990 s C# 2000 s and (many) others. All of these languages require a significant learning curve, are easy to make mistakes in that are hard to find, and are hard for others to decode (in large part because programmers fail to adequately comment codes or use badly named data variables). exist to manipulate data using algorithms. 2
Textbook useful hints (by page) 10-36: basics 87-97: arrays 108-110: switch statements 126-127: compound assignment 128-138: classes 141: cerr MPI (by page) 71-80: basics 651-676: the works 3
hello.cpp A simple first program is the hello, world program: // my first program in C++ #include <iostream> using namespace std; int main (int argc, char** argv) /* command line argument info */ { cout << "Hello World!\n"; // cout is standard character output return 0; } argc is the number of arguments. argv is a pointer to an array of character pointers that hold each of the arguments given to the program when it runs. 4
Compile the file with g++, e.g., g++ hello.cpp o hello Run the program with./hello Some people like to add an extension.exe on executables. Tastes vary. g++ is available on Linux and OS X systems easily. On Windows, you can install it natively or after installing Cygwin (http://www.cygwin.com), a Linuxlike port of many Linux and FSF/GNU programs. 5
Major parts of C++ Data types o Integer: int, short, short int, long, long int o Floating point: float, double, long double o Character: char o User defined Classes o A container for functions (called methods) about complicated data structures with public, protected, and private data. o Classes can be combined through inheritance to be quite complicated. Templates o A mechanism to define a class for a wide variety of data instead of statically defined data, e.g., define a vector class for int, float, double with a single source code. Which data type is actually used is determined when a class is used in a program declaration. Yikes. Functions o Independent programs that implement algorithms. 6
Data types Type Subtype Size Description Integer int 32 or 64 standard sized long or long int 32 or 64 bigger is better short or short int 16 or 32 Legacy Floating float 32 single precision Point double 64 double precision long double 128 quad precision Character char 8 or 16 single character Arrays char name[100]; // 100 characters, indexed 0-99 char me[] = Craig Douglas ; // array size computed by compiler double matrix[10][20]; // 10 rows, 20 columns 7
Functions Output + Function name ( Arguments ) Pointers and References char* who; who = me; cout << who[0] << endl; who[0] = c ; who[6] = d ; cout << who << endl; who = name; cout << who[0] << who[1] << endl; // endl = end of line ( \n ) // me is now in lower case // 1 st 2 characters 8
References are used in function declarations and are similar to pointers: double inner_product( double& x, double& y, int len ) { double ip; // return value for( int i = 0, ip = 0.0; i < len; i++ ) ip += ( x[i] * y[i] ); return ip; } // 0 <= i < len // for loop s one statement // or just ip; Here are lots of new things: a for loop with a local variable definition, an increment operator, and a complicated assignment statement inside the loop. References (double& x) differ from pointers (double* x) only that the data in a reference variable will not change. In the inner_product function, neither x nor y will change, so they can be reference variables. Compilers can do better optimizations on read only variables than on ones that can be changed. 9
Classes Two distinct parts should be defined: 1. A header file with declarations and method (function) headers. 2. An implementation file that is compiled. The header file should have the following sections: private: all hidden variables and members are declared here. protected: only classes declared as a friend are declared here. public: members that can be accessed by anyone. o Constructors, the destructor, and copy members should be defined. o Access members and algorithmic members should be defined. 10
A sample header file for a class hello is hello.h: #ifndef H_class_hello #define H_class_hello class hello { private: char greeting[100]; public: hello(); hello(const char*); virtual ~hello(); hello(hello& the_other_hello); void set_greeting(const char*); void print_greeting(); }; #endif // constructor, no arguments // constructor, 1 argument (greeting) // destructor // copy constructor // set greeting // print greeting 11
The implementation file, hello.cpp, could be as simple as #include "hello.h" #include <iostream> #include <string> using namespace std; hello::hello() { char ini = 0; set_greeting(&ini); } hello::hello(const char* msg) { set_greeting(msg); } hello::~hello() { } hello::hello(hello& the_other_hello) { hello(the_other_hello.greeting); } void hello::set_greeting(const char* msg) { strcpy(greeting, msg); } void hello::print_greeting() { cout << greeting << endl; } You should study one of the classes in the textbook s software. 12
Compound Statements C++ has many compound statements, including if ( clause ) statement else if (clause ) statement else (clause ) statement o else if and else are optional o many times statement is actually { statements } for( initialize ; stopping condition ; updates at end of loop ) statement o initilize can be multiple items separated by commas o stopping condition is anything appropriate inside an if clause o updates are comma separated items o usually there is only one item, not multiple while ( true condition ) statement o true condition is anything appropriate inside an if clause switch ( variable ) { case value: statements break default: statements } o multiple case statements can occur without a statement between them o default is optional o remember the break or the computer will continue into the next case (unless this is desired) 13
One of C++ s strengths and weakness is the ability to overload operators. A very good online source of information about how overload any operator in C++ is given at the URL http://www.java2s.com/tutorial/cpp/0200 Operator- Overloading/Catalog0200 Operator-Overloading.htm C++ has a Template mechanism that allows classes to be automatically defined for different data types. There is even a Standard Template Library (STL) that covers many useful template types. Useful tutorials can be found at http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/ http://www.cplusplus.com/files/tutorial.pdf http://www.java2s.com/tutorial/cpp/catalogcpp.htm 14