Introduction to Classes in C++

Class : A class is an extension to the structure Data Type: instead of holding only data, it can hold both data and functions.

An object is an instantiation of a class. In terms of variables, a class would be the type, and an object would be the variable.

Classes are generally declared using the keyword class, with the following Syntax:

class class_name {
  access_specifier_1:
    member1;
  access_specifier_2:
    member2;
  ...
  } object_names;//This is optional

Where class_name is a valid identifier for the class, object_names is an optional list of names for objects of this class. The body of the declaration can contain members, that can be either data or function declarations, and optionally access specifiers.

All is very similar to the declaration of a structure, except that we can now include also functions and members, but also this new thing called access specifier. An access specifier is one of the following three keywords: private, public or protected. These specifiers modify the access rights that the members following them acquire:

• private members of a class are accessible only from within other members of the same class or from their friends.
• protected members are accessible from members of their same class and from their friends, but also from members of their derived classes.
• Finally, public members are accessible from anywhere where the object is visible.

By default, all members of a class declared with the class keyword have private access for all its members. Therefore, any member that is declared before one other class specifier automatically has private access.

// classes example
#include <iostream>

class CRectangle {
    int x, y;
  public:
    void set_values (int,int);
    int area () {return (x*y);}
};

void CRectangle::set_values (int a, int b) {
  x = a;
  y = b;
}

int main () {
  CRectangle rect;
  rect.set_values (3,4);
  cout << "area: " << rect.area();
  return 0;
}