In the introductory lesson for this chapter (), we introduced the scalability challenges that occur when we have many related individual variables. In this lesson, we’ll reintroduce the problem, and then discuss how arrays can help us elegantly solve problems such as these. The variable scalability challenge, revisited Consider the …
C++ is a complex language, full of subtle traps for the unwary. There is an almost infinite number of ways to screw things up. Fortunately, modern compilers are pretty good at detecting a large number of these cases and notifying the programmer via compile errors or warnings. Ultimately, any error …
By default, WordPress displays categories and archive listings in blog form — that is, by showing either excerpts or the entirety of the last N posts (dependent upon theme). While this is great for reading, it’s less than wonderful when searching for specific past entries. Category/Archive Indexing is a WordPress …
To recap the process needed to use a library: Once per library: Acquire the library. Download it from the website or via a package manager. Install the library. Unzip it to a directory or install it via a package manager. Once per project: Tell the compiler where to look for …
A few years ago, a friend of mine introduced me to a board game called Empire Builder. The player is in charge of a railroad and is competing against the other players, who are also running their own railroad lines. Given a limited supply of money, each player has to …
A library is a package of code that is meant to be reused by many programs. Typically, a C++ library comes in two pieces: A header file that defines the functionality the library is exposing (offering) to the programs using it. A precompiled binary that contains the implementation of that …
This lesson continues the discussion of arrays that began in lesson . Initializing fixed arrays Array elements are treated just like normal variables, and as such, they are not initialized when created. One way to “initialize” an array is to do it element by element: int prime[5]; // hold the …
Now that we’ve covered std::vector and std::array, we’ll complete our coverage of arrays by covering the last array type: C-style arrays. As mentioned in lesson , C-style arrays were inherited from the C language, and are built-in to the core language of C++ (unlike the rest of the array types, …
Although you have already seen the break statement in the context of switch statements (), it deserves a fuller treatment since it can be used with other types of control flow statements as well. The causes a while loop, do-while loop, for loop, or switch statement to end, with execution …
By far, the most utilized loop statement in C++ is the for statement. The (also called a ) is preferred when we have an obvious loop variable because it lets us easily and concisely define, initialize, test, and change the value of loop variables. As of C++11, there are two …
