3.9. Wrap-Up

In this chapter, you created user-defined classes, and created and used objects of those classes. We declared data members of a class to maintain data for each object of the class. We also defined member functions that operate on that data. You learned that member functions that do not modify a class’s data should be declared const. We showed how to call an object’s member functions to request the services the object provides and how to pass data to those member functions as arguments. We discussed the difference between a local variable of a member function and a data member of a class. We also showed how to use a constructor and a member-initializer list to ensure that every object is initialized properly. You learned that a single-parameter constructor should be declared explicit, and that a constructor cannot be declared const because it modifies the object being initialized. We demonstrated how to separate the interface of a class from its implementation to promote good software engineering. You learned that using directives and using declarations should never be placed in headers. We presented a diagram that shows the files that class-implementation programmers and client-code programmers need to compile the code they write. We demonstrated how set functions can be used to validate an object’s data and ensure that objects are maintained in a consistent state. UML class diagrams were used to model classes and their constructors, member functions and data members. In the next chapter, we begin our introduction to control statements, which specify the order in which a function’s actions are performed.