void is a special type. It means no type! We are accustomed to functions returning void. However, a function parameter can also be void. This means the function accepts zero parameters. Why is this possible? This feature is inherited from…
Recap Literals are hardcoded values such as 5 or "Hello world!". They cannot be changed after runtime. A variable also holds a value. But not quite. A variable is a representation of a value that is stored at a memory…
As part of the debugging process, we want to isolate the troublesome section of code. We can do this by sprinkling std::cerr statements to validate that certain parts of the code are working. However, after you’re finished with them you…
Introduction The entire C++ standard library lives inside a single namespace called std, which acts as one large container holding all of its functionality. The standard library is the result of decades of work by some of the best engineers…
Consider the following: In main(), we call the function before its implementation. This is possible since we included a forward declaration before the function call. This tells the compiler: Hey, just letting you know this function exists. However, I’ll implement…
Introduction A local variable in C++ is any variable defined within a function (or block). This definition is type-agnostic—it does not matter whether the variable is a fundamental type (int, double), a standard library type (std::string, std::unique_ptr), or a user-defined…
Consider this program The return value of GetRadius() is stored in a variable and passed into CalculateArea(). x only exists act as the interface between the two functions. We can do better. Doing Better We merge these two instructions in…
Consider the following: According to the rules of C++, nested functions are illegal. Functions must be implemented in the global namespace. Then they can be called in other functions. Why is this the case? This behaviour was inherited from C.…
Consider the following: This statement contains multiple << operators that are chained in a single instruction. The insertion operator (<<) operators on a C-style string literal, an escape sequence, a class object and a function. The answer comes down to…
Consider the following This is default-initialization. This defines the variable with a garbage value (not zero). If we print its contents, it will be whatever value is sitting at that memory address. Who knows! When you don’t initialize a variable,…