Congratulations on reaching the end of the longest chapter in the tutorials! Unless you have previous programming experience, this chapter was probably the most challenging one so far. If you made it this far, you’re doing great! The good news is that the next chapter is easy in comparison. And …
In the previous lesson, we introduced std::array, which provides the functionality of C++’s built-in fixed arrays in a safer and more usable form. Analogously, the C++ standard library provides functionality that makes working with dynamic arrays safer and easier. This functionality is named std::vector. Unlike std::array, which closely follows the …
In previous lessons, we’ve talked at length about fixed and dynamic arrays. Although both are built right into the C++ language, they both have downsides: Fixed arrays decay into pointers, losing the array length information when they do, and dynamic arrays have messy deallocation issues and are challenging to resize …
This lesson is optional, for advanced readers who want to learn more about C++. No future lessons build on this lesson. A pointer to a pointer is exactly what you’d expect: a pointer that holds the address of another pointer. Pointers to pointers A normal pointer to an int is …
In the previous lesson on bitwise operators (), we discussed how the various bitwise operators apply logical operators to each bit within the operands. Now that we understand how they function, let’s take a look at how they’re more commonly used. In order to manipulate individual bits (e.g. turn them …
In addition to dynamically allocating single values, we can also dynamically allocate arrays of variables. Unlike a fixed array, where the array size must be fixed at compile time, dynamically allocating an array allows us to choose an array length at runtime. To allocate an array dynamically, we use the …
C-style string symbolic constants In a previous lesson, we discussed how you could create and initialize a C-style string, like this: #include <iostream> int main() { char myName[]{ “Alex” }; // fixed array std::cout << myName << ‘\n’; return 0; } C++ also supports a way to create C-style string …
The C++ language allows you to perform integer addition or subtraction operations on pointers. If ptr points to an integer, ptr + 1 is the address of the next integer in memory after ptr. ptr – 1 is the address of the previous integer before ptr. Note that ptr + …
In the previous lesson (), we covered the basics of pointers, which are objects that hold the address of another object. This address can be dereferenced using the dereference operator (*) to get the value at that address: #include <iostream> int main() { int x{ 5 }; std::cout << x; …
Now that we’ve covered what functions are and some of their basic capabilities, let’s take a closer look at why they’re useful. New programmers often ask, “Can’t we just put all the code inside the main function?” For simple programs, you absolutely can. However, functions provide a number of benefits …
