C++ Workshop - Getting Started with C++ (Ch. 1 & 2)

Jeromy Walsh · 2008-05-18T16:41:20

Welcome to the GDNet C++ Workshop – Ch. 1 & 2For a complete introduction to this workshop, please look here. Workshop Overview This workshop is designed to aid people in their journey to learn beginning C++. This workshop is targeted at highly motivated individuals who are interested in learning C++ or who have attempted to learn C++ in the past, but found that without sufficient support and mentoring they were unable to connect all the pieces of this highly complex but powerful programming language. This is a 'guided' self-teaching C++ workshop. Each student is responsible for taking the time to read the material and learn the information. The community and tutors that arise out of this workshop are here for making the learning process run more smoothly, but are not obligated to baby-sit a person's progress. Because everyone will be working from the same textbook (Teach Yourself C++ in 21 days 5th Ed.), students may find it easier to get answers to the specific questions they might have. There is no minimum age requirement, and there is no previous programming experience required. Additionally, this workshop does not attempt to defend C++ as a language, nor does it attempt to demonstrate that C++ is either more or less useful then other programming languages for any particular purpose. People who intend to start a discussion about the differences between C++ and ANY other languages (except as are relevant to a particular discussion), are encouraged to do so elsewhere. This workshop is for educational, not philosophical discussions. Quizzes & Exercises Each chapter will have quizzes and exercises. Please try and answer them by yourself. If you try with reasonable effort but are unable to answer the questions or complete the exercises, feel free to post a clarification question here on the thread. Tutors, myself, or others will do the best we can to point you in the right direction for finding the answer. Chapter 1 – Getting Started, Chapter 2 – The Anatomy of a C++ ProgramIntroduction Greetings! Most weeks will be 7 days, beginning on Monday and ending on Sunday, however as this week starts on Thursday, and is the first “week” in the class, we will extend it to a full 10 days to get on a better schedule and give people a chance to obtain their textbooks in the mail. Additionally, as the topics are relatively straight forward, requiring little programming, etc…Week 1 will be a combination of the first 2 chapters. Chapter 1 is about 16 pages and chapter 2 is an additional 14 pages. Participants have 10 days ( ending Sunday, June 10th ) to read the first two chapters, at which point we will move on to the next chapter. Participants are welcome to post their questions for these chapters within this thread and myself, the tutors, and other participants will do the best we can to answer your questions. As the thread is likely to grow to a hundred or more posts, the C++ workshop threads will be closely moderated. Discussions which become narratives, flame-wars, or philosophical will either be removed or moved to another forum, unless entirely relevant to the current chapters. If you have trouble installing your compiler or getting “Hello World” to build, please ask for help. You will not be able to move forward with the workshop until you’ve done those two tasks successfully. Good Luck! Finally, feel free to post quiz-like questions after about 5 days. This will give people an opportunity to test their knowledge and understanding after they’ve had a chance to absorb the information. For questions which require further research then what is in the book, mark the question with an [Extra Credit] tag. Topical Outline of the Reading (Not literal due to copyrights) A History of C++ Which language should be learned first C or C++? How does C++ compare to Java and C#? An introduction to Managed C++ The ANSI Standard Getting in the right mindset to program How an .exe gets created Building your first program. – “Hello World” An introduction to compiler errors A review of Hello World An introduction to “Console Out” An introduction to the Standard Namespace Commenting your code An introduction to functions The difference between Methods and Functions Additional Resources None... Creating and Building a Project w/ VC++ .NET 2005It has come to my attention that the instructions for creating a project/file in the book on pages 19-20 are for Visual C++ 6. Visual C++ .NET 2005 is actually version 8. The correct approach for .NET 2005 is: Step 1: Create an empty project File->New->Project Select 'Win32' from Project types Select 'Win32 Console Application' from the Templates Type the name of the project and the location in the edit box near the bottom. Click OK When the dialog box appears click on "Application Settings" on the left Click "Empty Project" under Additional options. Click Finish Step 2: Add files to your project Right click on your project in the Solution Explorer Add->New Item Click Code in the Categories List Select either C++ File or Header File as appropriate to the task Type the name of the file in the edit box near the bottom. Click Add Building your executable For solutions which only have a single project, Build Solution will do the same as "Build <projName>". Once you have solutions which are containers for multiple projects, you will need to choose either to build individual projects, or the whole solution. I believe all of the tasks we will attempt in this workshop will require only a single project. As such, "Build Solution" should work just fine. Week 1 Errata Chapter 1, Exercise 1 says "...try to guess what it does without running it." If you DO put it into a compiler it will give you a compile error as the listing is not correct. The author meant: #include <iostream> int main() { int x = 5; int y = 7; std::cout << std::endl; std::cout << x + y << " " << x * y; std::cout << std::endl; return 0; } Note that 'endl' is also part of the Standard Namespace, and thus requires std:: at the beginning. [Edited by - jwalsh on May 30, 2007 5:25:07 PM]

CPP Workshop Workshops

Started by JWalsh June 01, 2006 11:40 AM

182 comments, last by Dbproguy 15 years, 12 months ago

Sr_Guapo

876

June 30, 2006 11:04 PM

Quote:Original post by Myotis
When working on a big project, how will the final product be structured ? Will it be all in a single .ccp file like, a 100 meg text file ? Or can you create multiple programs, compile them in .obj and then link them all together ?

Thanks.

It will generally depend on the project. Most projects will be the easiest to arrange int several header (.h) and source (.cpp) files that will be compiled into a large exe. Some projects will warrant creating a separate library (either statically or dynamically linked) and use them with another exe.

Really it is whatever makes the most sense to you. You may work best with one cpp file with 100,000 lines of code, but I guarantee others will have a very difficult job following it.

Sean Henley [C++ Tutor]Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Palejo

122

July 31, 2006 12:50 PM

Hello all,

My apologies if this has already been discussed, but I can't seem to find it anywhere...

I've been going back into some of my previous programs and want to 'break them down' into header files and other smaller .cpp files. But everytime I do this the compiler tells me it can't find the appropriate header files.

Since INCLUDE was discussed in chapter 2 I decided to post this here. Could somebody please give some information has to how exactly this is done using 2005 express? Thank you!

Palejo

Deyja

920

July 31, 2006 04:35 PM

The keyword is actually '#include', not 'INCLUDE'. Regardless; it's pretty simple. You '#include "filename.ext"'. This is different then standard headers which are usually included using the '#include <filename>' syntax. Now; the preprocessor has to be able to find the file. The path in the include statement is relative the file including it, so if 'C://code/foo.cpp' includes 'bar.hpp', the preprocessor will look for 'C://code/bar.hpp'.

Also, remember to add all your cpp files to your MSVC project so that the IDE knows to compile and link all of them. (And, well, add the headers too - but they don't technically get compiled; they just get included into a cpp file, which gets compiled.)

http://jemgine.omnisu.com

Palejo

122

August 20, 2006 05:09 PM

Glad to see things have picked up around here again:)

Ok, I'm getting closer here on combining multiple cpp files but could still use a little help.

I'm now getting errors such as the following:

character.obj : error LNK2005: "public: __thiscall character::character(int,int,int,int,int,int)" (??0character@@QAE@HHHHHH@Z) already defined in chapter6.obj

After some googling it seems I'm linking to the wrong run-time libraries...(http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=293675)

I've tried setting my libraries to multi-threaded dll but still get the same error:( Do I need to include another library in my pgm to get this thing to work? Or is there some other big concept here I'm still missing? Thanks again folks,

Pal

Deyja

920

August 20, 2006 08:28 PM

That means you included the definition of the function in more than one compilation unit. Each cpp file is a compilation unit. The headers you #include should contain only the declaration of the function, not the definition. When they include the definition, that code gets compiled into every compilation unit that includes the header. Then, the linker discovers multiple copies of it and, not knowing witch to pick, goes caput.

The difference between a declaration and a definition is simple.

void function(); //This is a declaration.void function()  //This is a definition. It has a code block.{   //code}

You stick declarations in the header file, then place the definition in one and only one cpp file.

//file my_header.h#ifndef MY_HEADER_H#define MY_HEADER_Hvoid function();#endif

//file my_header.cpp#include "my_header.h"void function(){   //code}

//some other .cpp file#include "my_header.h"void some_other_function(){   function(); //call the function declared in my_header.h}

And that just used up my 'nice answer' quota for the whole week.

http://jemgine.omnisu.com

recombinant

122

August 22, 2006 03:55 PM

Howdy!

I just wanted to say that I just received my book from eCampus, and I'm stoked to be able to get started with the workshop! This is something I've been really wanting (and needing), so it couldn't have happened at a better time.

Additionally, it coincides with my completing "Beginning C++ Game Programming" by Michael Dawson, which is a very readable book, but it just didn't have the depth that I was looking for. But I finished the last chapter today and I'm looking forward to this workshop, and hopefully there will be a collaborative atmosphere so that I and others can get the most out of it.

Thanks for putting this together!!!

evan k. stone | recombinant---------------------------------------aspiring game + audio programmersf bay area, ca, usa

samanime

122

August 23, 2006 03:26 PM

Yes, I have read through both books and they are both excellent. However, Sams Teach Yourself C++ in 21 days goes into each subject more in depth. Dawson's book seems to rush through the subjects, and if you have further questions or would like further examples of a particular thing, you will be left wanting.

Dawson's book is similar to Sams Teach Yourself C++ in 24 hours, in that they both seem to be aimed more at teaching programmers of other languages C++ in a short amount of time then they are to teach new programmers not only how to use C++, but also knowledge about the concepts of programming in general.

I think Jeromy made an excellent selection on the book to use for this workshop. Just about any Sams Teach Yourself book is worth the time to read and study.

recombinant

122

August 23, 2006 05:00 PM

I thought the Dawson book had a nice flow to it, but it was a bit thin (it's only 324 pages), and it was more of a "Intro to C++ with Game-Related Examples". A good intro book though.

From what I've seen so far it looks the "...21 Days" book like a pretty decent text. It's certainly heavy enough (physically). Since I've been a professional software developer for the last 12 years (in other languages than C++), I pretty much fit into the category you describe - someone who's done programming in other contexts but would like to learn C++. So I'm really looking forward to this workgroup -- and in particular the interactivity of being able to discuss the chapters, exercises, etc. up here on the forums.

I think the project that Jeromy announced is going to be a fun one to work on as well. Really looking forward to tackling that one.

Thanks!

evan k. stone | recombinant---------------------------------------aspiring game + audio programmersf bay area, ca, usa

ChaosUK

122

September 13, 2006 04:26 PM

Pretty new to the forums, just orderd the book and hoping to join in soon :)

JWalsh

498

Author

September 14, 2006 12:31 PM

Welcome. =) We're a little over half way done, but feel free to reach the first 12 chapters and most your questions in the appropriate threads while you get caught up.

Cheers!

Jeromy Walsh
Sr. Tools & Engine Programmer | Software Engineer
Microsoft Windows Phone Team
Chronicles of Elyria (An In-development MMORPG)
GameDevelopedia.com - Blog & Tutorials
GDNet Mentoring: XNA Workshop | C# Workshop | C++ Workshop
"The question is not how far, the question is do you possess the constitution, the depth of faith, to go as far as is needed?" - Il Duche, Boondock Saints

C++ Workshop - Getting Started with C++ (Ch. 1 & 2)

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C++ Workshop - Getting Started with C++ (Ch. 1 & 2)

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