Advanced C

C++ Getting started

Th.S Nguyen Minh Anh

Phenikaa University

Last Update: 22nd February 2023

Outline
Course Elements

▶ Lectures: 14 classes
▶ Assessment: consisting of multiple assignments in class during the course and two
exams (midterm and final exams)
▶ 10% CC, 30% midterm, and 60% final
Course Material

▶ Regularly check annoucement and assignments on Canvas

▶ Slides: can be found on Canvas
▶ Textbook:
Lippman, Stanley B., C++ Primer, Fifth Edition, Addison-Wesley Professional,
2012 (see textbook folder on Canvas)
▶ Consider every web resource highly suspect until you have reason to believe
better of it
Aims of the Course

▶ Teach/learn:
▶ Fundamental programming concepts
▶ Key useful techniques
▶ Basic Standard C++ facilities
▶ Object-oriented programming
▶ After the course, you’ll be able to
▶ Write small C++ programs for scientific computations
▶ Learn the basics of many other languages by yourself
▶ Read much larger programs
▶ After the course, you will not (yet) be
▶ An expert programmer
▶ A C++ language expert
▶ An expert user of advanced libraries
Motivation

▶ In your case: programming as a tool for science, to carry out complex

computations and simulations, to analyze large amount of data, eg from LHC.
▶ Foster understanding of problems and their solutions in problem solving. Only by
expressing a correct program and constructing and testing a program can you be
certain that your understanding is complete.
▶ Like Mathematics it can be an intellectual exercise that sharpens our ability to
think.
▶ It can be fun
Course Outline
Part I: The basics
▶ Types, variables
▶ Strings, vectors, arrays
▶ Functions
Part II: The C++ libraries
▶ IO libraries
▶ Sequential containers
▶ Associative containers
Part II: Class and more
▶ Class defining
▶ Overloaded operations and conversions
▶ Object-Oriented Programming
Further Remark

▶ We use ISO standard C++ 14

▶ It is good to sketch first the program on a piece of paper. This is a useful step in
solving a programming task. The design is a human brain activity not a computer
activity and the best way not to skip this stage is to stay away from computer
▶ We do not use an advanced IDE because our focus is on developing programming
skills. When you have acquired them it will be easier to move to an advanced
IDE. Also no code runner in VS Code.
Outline
The first program

#include <iostream>
int main () // main () is where a C ++ program starts
{
std::cout << "Hello world !\n" ;
// output the 13 characters Hello world !
// followed by a new line
return 0;
// return a value indicating success
}
Compilation and Linking

compiler.png
▶ You write C++ source code. Source code is (in principle) human readable
▶ The compiler translates what you wrote into object code (sometimes called
machine code)
Object code is simple enough for a computer to “understand”
▶ The linker links your code to system code needed to execute
E.g., input/output libraries, operating system code, and windowing code
▶ The result is an executable program: E.g., a .exe file on windows or an a.out file
on Unix
Building a Program

Example: a simple program consisting of one single file, mycode.cpp, using the GNU
C++ compiler on a Unix or Linux system

g++ mycode.cpp -o myprogram

To run the program

./myprogram
A First Look at Input/Output
A program that uses the IO library

#include <iostream>
int main()
{
std::cout << "Enter two numbers:" << std::endl;
int v1 = 0, v2 = 0;
std::cin >> v1 >> v2;
std::cout << "The sum of " << v1 << " and " << v2
<< " is " << v1 + v2 << std::endl;
return 0;
}

Writing to a Stream
Reading from a Stream
Using Names from the Standard Library

▶ Careful readers will note that this program uses std::cout and std::endl rather than
just cout and endl.
▶ The prefix std:: indicates that the names cout and endl are defined inside the
namespace named std.
▶ Namespaces allow us to avoid inadvertent collisions between the names we define
and uses of those same names inside a library. All the names defined by the
standard library are in the std namespace.
▶ We can get rid of that by using

using namespace std;

Comments in C++

#include <iostream>
/*
* Simple main function:
* Read two numbers and write their sum
*/
int main()
{
// prompt user to enter two numbers
std::cout << "Enter two numbers:" << std::endl;
int v1 = 0, v2 = 0;
// variables to hold the input we read
std::cin >> v1 >> v2; // read input
std::cout << "The sum of " << v1 << " and " << v2
<< " is " << v1 + v2 << std::endl;
return 0;
}
Comments in C++

There are two kinds of comments in C++

▶ single-line: starts with a double slash (//) and ends with a newline
Everything to the right of the slashes on the current line is ignored by the
compiler. A comment of this kind can contain any text, including additional
double slashes.
▶ paired: begins with a /* and ends with the next */. These comments can include
anything that is not a */, including newlines. The compiler treats everything that
falls between the /* and */ as part of the comment.
Flow of Control: if/else statement
supports conditional execution. We can use an if to write a program to to print
positive number entered by the user if the user enters a negative number, it is skipped

#include <iostream>
int main()
{
int number;
std::cout << "Enter an integer: ";
std::cin >> number;
// checks if the number is positive
if (number > 0)
std::cout << "You entered a positive integer: " << number <<
endl;

std::cout << "This statement is always executed.";

return 0;
}
Flow of Control: while loop
repeatedly executes a section of code so long as a given condition is true. We can use
a while to write a program to sum the numbers from 1 through 10 inclusive as follows:

#include <iostream>
int main()
{
int sum = 0, val = 1;
while (val <= 10) {
sum += val; // assigns sum + val to sum
++val;
}
std::cout << "Sum of 1 to 10 inclusive is "
<< sum << std::endl;
return 0;
}
Flow of Control: for loop
the pattern—using a variable in a condition and incrementing that variable in the
body—happens so often that the language defines a second statement, the for
statement, that abbreviates code that follows this pattern. We can rewrite this
program using a for loop to sum the numbers from 1 through 10 as follows:

#include <iostream>
int main()
{
int sum = 0;
for (int val = 1; val <= 10; ++val)
sum += val; // equivalent to sum = sum + val
std::cout << "Sum of 1 to 10 inclusive is "
<< sum << std::endl;
return 0;
}
Example: Reading an Unknown Number of Inputs

#include <iostream>
int main()
{
int sum = 0, value = 0;
// read until end-of-file, calculating a running total of all
values read
while (std::cin >> value)
sum += value; // equivalent to sum = sum + value
std::cout << "Sum is: " << sum << std::endl;
return 0;
}

If the stream is valid—that is, if the stream hasn’t encountered an error—then the test
succeeds. An istream becomes invalid when we hit end-of-file or encounter an invalid
input, such as reading a value that is not an integer. An istream that is in an invalid
state will cause the condition to yield false.
Several cool things about C++ over C

▶ bool
▶ string
▶ vector
▶ struct/class member functions
In the next lecture

Will talk more about types, values, variables, declarations, input and output streams.