C++ Classes/Structures Class basics

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Example

A class is a user-defined type. A class is introduced with the class, struct or union keyword. In colloquial usage, the term "class" usually refers only to non-union classes.

A class is a collection of class members, which can be:

  • member variables (also called "fields"),
  • member functions (also called "methods"),
  • member types or typedefs (e.g. "nested classes"),
  • member templates (of any kind: variable, function, class or alias template)

The class and struct keywords, called class keys, are largely interchangeable, except that the default access specifier for members and bases is "private" for a class declared with the class key and "public" for a class declared with the struct or union key (cf. Access modifiers).

For example, the following code snippets are identical:

struct Vector
{
    int x;
    int y;
    int z;
};
// are equivalent to
class Vector
{
public:
    int x;
    int y;
    int z;
};

By declaring a class` a new type is added to your program, and it is possible to instantiate objects of that class by

Vector my_vector;

Members of a class are accessed using dot-syntax.

my_vector.x = 10;
my_vector.y = my_vector.x + 1; // my_vector.y = 11;
my_vector.z = my_vector.y - 4; // my:vector.z = 7;


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