The course is part of this learning path
In this course, we will explore the basic concepts and fundamentals of pointers in C++ and you'll learn how to use them to point to dynamically allocated memory.
Learning Objectives
- Learn the fundamentals of pointers
- Learn how to allocate memory dynamically and also how to return it
- Explore rectangle and circle classes and create instances of them dynamically
Intended Audience
- Beginner coders, new to C++
- Developers looking to upskill by adding C++ to their CV
- College students and anyone studying C++
Prerequisites
To get the most out of this course, you should have a basic understanding of the fundamentals of C++.
This section has been shorter than some, but is filled with a lot of challenging concepts and syntax. In fact, there are some other topics related to pointers that we could have discussed, but completely overwhelming you isn't really on my agenda. We've learned about the basic concepts about pointers, these special variables that hold memory addresses. We've learned how to use the address operator, also knows the address of operator to obtain the address of a variable and to store that into the pointer. But that's not done nearly as often as using pointers with dynamic data, which we also learned about. We used the new keyword to allocate memory in a special area of the memory called the Free Store or more commonly, the Heap. We also learned about other topics related to pointers, such as Const Correctness, that is, how to correctly use the const keyword in different scenarios. In the next section, we will learn about storing and loading data from long term or persistent storage media using file I/O, which means file input/output. I'm looking forward to it. So, get ready to be equipped with some brand new and powerful tools in your progress to becoming a stronger C++ developer. I'll see you there.
John has a Ph.D. in Computer Science and is a professional software engineer and consultant, as well as a computer science university professor and department chair.