Al Khwarizmi (LSD S3)
C++ for C programmers
Oct, 2022
Instructors: N. Hamid - R. Mahjoubi
What is C++
- C++ is a general-purpose
- Object-oriented programming language.
- created by Bjarne Stroustrup at Bell Labs circa 1980.
- C++ is very similar to C (invented by Dennis Ritchie in the early 1970s).
- C++ is so compatible with C that it will probably compile over 99% of C programs
without changing a line of source code. Though C++ is a lot of well-structured and
safer language than C as it OOPs based.
Why C++ ?
Stop coding C!
● C++ is a more structured and safer variant of C:
There are very few reasons not to switch to C++.
● C++ (almost) contains C as a subset.
So you can use any old mechanism you know from C
However: where new and better mechanisms exist, stop using the
old style C-style idioms.
C++ Scopes / Namespaces
Scopes
A portion of the source code where a given name is valid (Variable,
Function, Class, Namespace…)
From the terminal :
Instructor: N. Hamid - R. Mahjoubi Al Khwarizmi (LSD S3)
Scopes
Variables are (statically) allocated when defined and freed at the end
of a scope
From the terminal :
Instructor: N. Hamid - R. Mahjoubi Al Khwarizmi (LSD S3)
Namespaces
● A namespace is a declarative region that provides a scope to the
identifiers (the names of types, functions, variables, etc) inside it.
● Namespaces are used to organize code into logical groups and to
prevent name collisions that can occur especially when your code
base includes multiple libraries.
Instructor: N. Hamid - R. Mahjoubi Al Khwarizmi (LSD S3)
Namespaces
Instructor: N. Hamid - R. Mahjoubi Al Khwarizmi (LSD S3)
C++ Input & Output
Input and output (I/O) streams
1. Input and output functionality is not defined as part of the core C++ language, but rather
is provided through the C++ standard library (and thus resides in the std namespace).
2. When you include the iostream header, you gain access to a whole hierarchy of classes
responsible for providing I/O functionality.
Streams:
● stream is just a sequence of bytes that can be accessed sequentially
● Over time, a stream may produce or consume potentially unlimited amounts of
data.
● Typically we deal with two different types of streams. Input streams and output
streams.
Instructor: N. Hamid - R. Mahjoubi Al Khwarizmi (LSD S3)
Input and output (I/O) streams
Input streams:
● Are used to hold input from a data producer, such as a keyboard, a file, or a
network
● For example, the user may press a key on the keyboard while the program is
currently not expecting any input. Rather than ignore the users keypress, the data
is put into an input stream, where it will wait until the program is ready for it.
Output streams:
● Are used to hold output for a particular data consumer, such as a monitor, a file, or
a printer
● When writing data to an output device, the device may not be ready to accept that
data yet -- for example, the printer may still be warming up when the program
writes data to its output stream. The data will sit in the output stream until the
printer begins consuming it.
Instructor: N. Hamid - R. Mahjoubi Al Khwarizmi (LSD S3)
Input and output (I/O) streams
Input Output in C++:
● The istream class is the primary class used when dealing with input streams.
With input streams, the extraction operator (>>) is used to remove values from
the stream. This makes sense: when the user presses a key on the keyboard, the
key code is placed in an input stream. Your program then extracts the value from
the stream so it can be used.
● The ostream class is the primary class used when dealing with output streams.
With output streams, the insertion operator (<<) is used to put values in the
stream. This also makes sense: you insert your values into the stream, and the
data consumer (e.g. monitor) uses them
● The iostream class can handle both input and output, allowing bidirectional
I/O.
Instructor: N. Hamid - R. Mahjoubi Al Khwarizmi (LSD S3)
Input and output (I/O) streams
Input Output in C++:
● Standard streams in C++
A standard stream is a pre-connected stream provided to a computer program by its
environment. C++ comes with four predefined standard stream objects that have
already been set up for your use.
❏ cin -- an istream class tied to the standard input (typically the keyboard)
❏ cout -- an ostream class tied to the standard output (typically the monitor)
❏ cerr -- an ostream class tied to the standard error (typically the monitor), providing
unbuffered output
Instructor: N. Hamid - R. Mahjoubi Al Khwarizmi (LSD S3)
Input and output (I/O) streams
Std::cout example:
Instructor: N. Hamid - R. Mahjoubi Al Khwarizmi (LSD S3)
Input and output (I/O) streams
Std::cin example:
Instructor: N. Hamid - R. Mahjoubi
Al Khwarizmi (LSD S3)
Strings
C++ strings
What is string in c++ ?
One of the most useful data types supplied in the C++ libraries is the string. A string is
a variable that stores a sequence of letters or other characters.
Syntax:
Instructor: N. Hamid - R. Mahjoubi Al Khwarizmi (LSD S3)
C++ strings
Why using c++ strings ?
The main advantage of using strings in c++, is that strings use dynamic memory allocation. This means you
do not have to create your variable with a fixed size during initialization that you will not be able to change
throughout the whole program. However, instead, a string can easily be resized, concatenated, shrunk, and
manipulated during runtime.
Instructor: N. Hamid - R. Mahjoubi Al Khwarizmi (LSD S3)
Operations on strings
Basic Operations :
● Counting the number of characters in a string. The length method returns the number of characters in a
string, including spaces and punctuation.
Instructor: N. Hamid - R. Mahjoubi Al Khwarizmi (LSD S3)
Operations on strings
Basic Operations :
● Accessing individual characters. Using square brackets, you can access individual characters within a
string as if it’s a char array. Positions within a string str are numbered from 0 through str.length() - 1.
You can read and write to characters within a string using [ ].
● Comparing two strings. You can compare two strings for equality using the == and != operators. You
can use <, <=, >, and >= to compare strings as well.
Instructor: N. Hamid - R. Mahjoubi Al Khwarizmi (LSD S3)
Operations on strings
Basic Operations :
● Appending to a string: C++ strings are wondrous things. Suppose you have two strings, s1 and s2 and
you want to create a new string of their concatenation. Conveniently, you can just write s1 + s2, and
you’ll get the result you’d expect. Similarly, if you want to append to the end of string, you can use the
+= operator. You can append either another string or a single character to the end of a string.
Instructor: N. Hamid - R. Mahjoubi Al Khwarizmi (LSD S3)
Operations on strings
Basic Operations :
● Searching within a string. The string member function find is used to search within a string for a
particular string or character.
● Extracting substrings. Sometimes you would like to create new strings by extracting portions of a larger
one. The substr member function creates substrings from pieces of the receiver string.
● Modifying a string by inserting and replacing. Finally, let’s cover two other useful member functions that
modify the receiver string. The first, str1.insert(start, str2), inserts str2 at position start within str1,
shifting the remaining characters of str1 over. The second, str1.replace(start, length, str2), removes
from str1 a total of length characters starting at the position start, replacing them with a copy of str2.
Instructor: N. Hamid - R. Mahjoubi Al Khwarizmi (LSD S3)
Arrays
C style arrays
Fixed size arrays:
1. An array is an aggregate data type that lets us access many variables of the
same type through a single identifier.
2. A fixed array (also called a fixed length array or fixed size array) is an array
where the length is known at compile time
Syntax:
Instructor: N. Hamid - R. Mahjoubi Al Khwarizmi (LSD S3)
C style arrays
Fixed size arrays:
When declaring a fixed array, the length of the array (between the square brackets)
must be a compile-time constant. This is because the length of a fixed array must be
known at compile time.
Consider the following examples:
Instructor: N. Hamid - R. Mahjoubi Al Khwarizmi (LSD S3)
C style arrays
Passing fixed arrays to functions:
When passing an array as an argument to a function, a fixed array decays into a pointer,
and the pointer is passed to the function:
Instructor: N. Hamid - R. Mahjoubi Al Khwarizmi (LSD S3)
C style arrays
Passing fixed arrays to functions:
Finally, it is worth noting that arrays that are part of structs or classes do not decay
when the whole struct or class is passed to a function. This yields a useful way to
prevent decay if desired.
Instructor: N. Hamid - R. Mahjoubi Al Khwarizmi (LSD S3)
C style arrays
Fixed size arrays:
A note on fixed size arrays:
Because fixed arrays have memory allocated at compile time, that introduces two limitations:
● Fixed arrays cannot have a length based on either user input or some other value calculated at
runtime.
● Fixed arrays have a fixed length that can not be changed
In many cases, these limitations are problematic. Fortunately, C++ supports a second kind of array known
as a dynamic array. The length of a dynamic array can be set at runtime, and their length can be changed.
Instructor: N. Hamid - R. Mahjoubi Al Khwarizmi (LSD S3)
C style arrays
Dynamic arrays:
C++ supports three basic types of memory allocation:
● Static memory allocation happens for static and global variables. Memory for these types of
variables is allocated once when your program is run and persists throughout the life of your
program.
● Automatic memory allocation happens for function parameters and local variables. Memory for
these types of variables is allocated when the relevant block is entered, and freed when the block is
exited, as many times as necessary.
● Dynamic memory allocation, the program is responsible for managing the memory.
Instructor: N. Hamid - R. Mahjoubi Al Khwarizmi (LSD S3)
C style arrays
Dynamic arrays:
To allocate an array dynamically, we use the array form of new and delete (often called new[] and
delete[]):
Instructor: N. Hamid - R. Mahjoubi Al Khwarizmi (LSD S3)
C style arrays
Initializing dynamically allocated arrays
Prior to C++11, there was no easy way to initialize a dynamic array to a non-zero value (initializer
lists only worked for fixed arrays). This means you had to loop through the array and assign element
values explicitly.
However, starting with C++11, it’s now possible to initialize dynamic arrays using initializer lists!
Instructor: N. Hamid - R. Mahjoubi Al Khwarizmi (LSD S3)
C style arrays
Resizing arrays
Dynamically allocating an array allows you to set the array length at the time of allocation. However,
C++ does not provide a built-in way to resize an array that has already been allocated. It is possible
to work around this limitation by dynamically allocating a new array, copying the elements over, and
deleting the old array. However, this is error prone, especially when the element type is a class
(which have special rules governing how they are created).
Consequently, we recommend avoiding doing this yourself.
Fortunately, if you need this capability, C++ provides a resizable array as part of the standard library
called std::vector. We’ll introduce std::vector shortly.
Instructor: N. Hamid - R. Mahjoubi Al Khwarizmi (LSD S3)
Introduction to std::array
STD::ARRAY
Fixed size arrays:
1. std::array provides fixed array functionality that won’t decay when passed into a
function
2. std::array is defined in the <array> header, inside the std namespace.
Declaration and initialization:
Instructor: N. Hamid - R. Mahjoubi Al Khwarizmi (LSD S3)
STD::ARRAY
Passing std::arrays to functions:
Because std::array doesn’t decay to a pointer when passed to a function, the size()
function will work even if you call it from within a function:
Instructor: N. Hamid - R. Mahjoubi Al Khwarizmi (LSD S3)
STD::ARRAY
Range-based for-loops:
Because the length is always known, range-based for-loops work with std::array:
Instructor: N. Hamid - R. Mahjoubi Al Khwarizmi (LSD S3)
C++ vectors
C++ Exceptions
C++ Templates
C++ Iterators
C++ object oriented programming
