C++ Class Definitions

C++ Programming and Classes

• The main purpose of C++ programming is to add object-oriented features to the C programming language.
• Classes are the central feature of C++ that supports object-oriented programming and are often called user-defined types.

Class Definition

• A class definition specifies the form of an object and combines data representation and methods for manipulating that data into one package.
• The data and functions within a class are called members of the class.
• A class definition starts with the keyword "class" followed by the class name and the class body, enclosed by a pair of curly braces.
• A class definition must be followed by either a semicolon or a list of declarations.

Class Members

• The keyword "public" determines the access attributes of the members of the class that follows it.
• A public member can be accessed from outside the class anywhere within the scope of the class object.
• Members of a class can also be specified as private or protected.

Defining C++ Objects

• A class provides the blueprints for objects.
• An object is created from a class, and objects of a class are declared with exactly the same sort of declaration as variables of basic types.
• Each object of a class has its own copy of data members.

Accessing Data Members

• The public data members of objects of a class can be accessed using the direct member access operator (.).
• The direct member access operator is used to access the data members of an object.