Classes

Objects in C++ are data structures with state and member functions. We can think of a class as a blueprint to define the structure and behaviour of an instantiated object.

Table of Contents

1. Difference From Structs
2. Defining a Class
3. Initializing Class Members
4. Constructors
5. Member Initializers
6. Default Constructors
7. Overloaded Constructors
8. Defining Member Functions
9. Fetching and Modifying Class Members
10. Public vs Private vs Protected Access
11. Destructors
12. RAII - Resource Acquisition is Initialization
13. Static Members Variables and Functions
14. Const Objects
15. Const Member Functions
16. This Pointer
17. Header Class Definition and CPP Class Implementations
18. Object Oriented Inheritance
19. Simple Inheritance
20. Polymorphism To Be Continued
21. Further Reading

Difference From Structs

Let’s start by reiterating what was said at the end of the struct section:

The only difference between a struct and a class is the default for member visibility:

• struct members are public by default.
• class members are private by default.

💡 Best Practice:

Use struct for data-only structures and class for objects with data and behaviours.

Defining a Class

Let’s start to define a class to represent a calendar date:

class Date {
  int year;
  int month;
  int day;
};

⚡ Warning:

Don’t forget the semicolon after the closing curly brace.

Initializing Class Members

Because the member variables are private we cannot (yet) use an initializer list to create an object of type Date:

Date birthday{1977, 9, 27}; // Error! No matching constructor.

We can, however, give the members default values:

class Date {
  int year{1};
  int month{1};
  int day{1};
};

// Later in the program:
Date birthday{}; // Ok: Internally day, month, year all set to 1.

🎵 Note:

Classes without constructors are provided zero-argument default constructors.

Constructors

In order to initialize private member variables when constructing an object we need one (or more) special functions called constructors.

Constructors are named after the class and have no return type:

class Date {
  int year{1};
  int month{1};
  int day{1};

public:
  Date(int y, int m, int d)
  {
    year = y;
    month = m;
    day = d;
  }

🎵 Note:

Class members are private by default. We use public: to allow access to the constructor.

Member Initializers

A more modern way to define the constructor would be to use member initializers to initialize our three member variables.

class Date {
  int year;
  int month;
  int day;

public:
  Date(int y, int m, int d)
      : year{y}, month{m}, day{d} // member initializers.
  {
    // Constructor body empty as member initializers did all the work.
  }
};

// Later in the program:
Date birthday{1977, 9, 27}; // Works now!

Default Constructors

With our new constructor in place our class will no longer have an implicit default constructor:

Date birthday{}; // Error! No matching constructor.

This can be fixed by requesting a default constructor:

class Date {
  int year; // Uninitialized properties are set to 0.
  int month;
  int day;

public:
  Date(int y, int m, int d)
      : year{y}, month{m}, day{d}
  { }

  Date() = default;
};

// Later in the program:
Date birthday{}; // Works again! But all properties default to zero if uninitialized.

Overloaded Constructors

Just like other functions, contructors can be overloaded:

class Date {
  // Let's put back in the defaults through initialization.
  int year{1};
  int month{1};
  int day{1};

public:
  Date(int y, int m, int d) // Three argument constructor.
      : year{y}, month{m}, day{d}
  { }

  Date(int y) // Year only, one argument constructor.
      : year{y}
  { }

  Date() = default;
};

// Later in the program:
Date defaultDate{}; // Internally: year = 1, month = 1, day = 1
Date JanFirstInTheFuture{3000}; // Internally: year = 3000, month = 1, day = 1
Date SeptSecondInTheFuture{300, 9, 2}; // Internally: year = 3000, month = 9, day = 2

Defining Member Functions

We can add other functions to the class that use the private member variables.

Here’s the Date class again, but simplified to have only one constructor. A public debugging function has been added:

class Date {
  int year{1};
  int month{1};
  int day{1};

public:
  Date(int y, int m, int d)
      : year{y}, month{m}, day{d}
  { }

  void debugPrint() {
    std::cout << "Y:" << year << " M:" << month << " D:" << day << "\n";
  }
};

// Later in the program:
 Date birthday{1977, 9, 27};
 birthday.debugPrint(); // Outputs: Y:1977 M:9 D:27

Fetching and Modifying Class Members

If you need to break encapsulation and provide getters and setters for private members variables, it’s common to prefix the member names with a lowercase m or m_:

class Date {
  int mYear{1};
  int mMonth{1};
  int mDay{1};

public:
  Date(int y, int m, int d)
    : mYear{y}, mMonth{m}, mDay{d}
  {  }

  int year() { // Trivial Getter
    return mYear;
  }

  void year(int y) { // Trivial Setter
    mYear = y;
  }

  void debugPrint() {
    std::cout << "Y:" << mYear << " M:" << mMonth << " D:" << mDay << "\n";
  }
};

// Later in the code:
 Date birthday{1, 9, 1977};
 std::cout << birthday.year() << "\n"; // Outputs: 1
 birthday.year(1977);
 birthday.debugPrint(); // Outputs: Y:1977 M:9 D:27

💡 Best Practice:

The C++ Code Guidelines warn against “trivial getters and setters”.

Public vs Private vs Protected Access

We’ve seen how the public: access specifier can make member functions accessible from outside the class. There are actually three access specifiers we can use:

• public: - Members are accessible from outside the class.
• private: - Members cannot be accessed from outside the class. (Default)
• protected: - Members cannot be accessed from the outside, but can be accessed in inherited classes.

Destructors

Class destructors are called when an object is destroyed. This usually happens when a variable goes out of scope. Destructors are named after the class with a tilde ~ prefix. They take no arguments and have no return type.

Here’s a class with a constructor and destructor that announce their own execution:

RAII - Resource Acquisition is Initialization

Constructors and destructors allow for the popular resource management technique RAII, where the life-cycles of resources (like memory, network sockets, open files, etc) are bound to the lifetime of specific objects.

Said another way, with RAII resources are obtained within class constructors and released in class destructors. This way, resource cleanup is automatically handled when objects go out of scope.

A better name for this technique is Scope-Bound Resource Management (SBRM), but RAII is the term everyone seems to use.

⏳ Wait For It:

We’ll see RAII in action when we get to the pointers and objects module.

Static Members Variables and Functions

Members and functions can be made to belong to the class (rather than to an instance of the class) using the static keyword.

Const Objects

Recall that we can mark variables as const to have the compiler ensure they are never modified once initialized.

Objects can also be made const, which will ensure that none of their member variables can change. Let’s return to our example Date class:

🎵 Note:

Public member variables of a const object also cannot be changed.

Const Member Functions

Class member functions that do not change the state of any member variables can also be marked as const. When marking a function as const the keyword comes after the function signature.

If you look at the Date code in the previous section you’ll see that two of the member functions are marked as const. When an object is marked as const, we can only call const member functions on that object. Try removing the const from the debugPrint function and you’ll see that the compiler will prevent you from calling this function on the immutableDate object.

This Pointer

Like other object oriented languages, C++ objects have a hidden this variable to provide an internal self-reference to the object.

You will rarely (if ever) need to make use of this directly, although you might see legacy code using this to disambiguate class member variables from method parameters of the same name:

class Widget {
public:
  Widget(int id) {
    this->id = id; // this->id is the member, while id is the parameter.
  }
private:
  int id;
}

🎵 Note:

The -> operator is used to reference members via this.

Header Class Definition and CPP Class Implementations

Up to this point we’ve been defining the class and its implementation within the main.cpp but it’s more common to define a class within a .h header file, with its implementation defined in a separate .cpp file.

When defining methods in the .cpp file we must prefix the method name with Classname:: where Classname is the actual name of the class.

🎵 Note:

Use the 📄 file icon above to toggle the file explorer to see date.h and data.cpp.

Object Oriented Inheritance

In object-oriented programming, we can create classes that inherit members from existing classes. In C++ we say that the derived class inherits from a base class. In other programming languages we might say that a child class (or sub class) inherits from a parent class (or super class).

Imagine a Character class which is the base class of two derived classes, PlayerCharacter and AICharacter.

  PlayerCharacter hero{"Daisy Glutton"};
  AICharacter helper{"Wally Glutton"};

Inheritance describes an is-a relationship:

• The hero object is-a PlayerCharacter and it also is-a Character.
• The helper object is-a AICharacter and it also is-a Character.

Through this relationship, the derived class inherits access to the public and protected members of the base class.

Simple Inheritance

Let’s do a quick overview of the basics of C++ inheritance with an example of a Student class derived from a Person class.

💡 Best Practice:

See a version of this code with classes defined and implemented in .h and .cpp files.

Polymorphism To Be Continued

⏳ Wait For It:

Subtype polymorphism is covered in our pointers and polymorphism module.

Further Reading

• Chapter 11 @ learncpp.com covers basic object-oriented programming with classes
• Related isocpp.org FAQs:
  • Classes and Objects FAQ
  • Constructors FAQ
  • Destructors FAQ
  • Inheritance Basics FAQ