In C++ I Cannot Grasp Pointers and Classes

Question

I\'m fresh out of college and have been working in C++ for some time now. I understand all the basics of C++ and use them, but I\'m having a hard time grasping more advance

Answer 1

Classes are relatively easy to grasp; OOP can take you many years. Personally, I didn't fully grasp true OOP until last year-ish. It is too bad that Smalltalk isn't as widespread in colleges as it should be. It really drives home the point that OOP is about objects trading messages, instead of classes being self-contained global variables with functions.

If you truly are new to classes, then the concept can take a while to grasp. When I first encountered them in 10th grade, I didn't get it until I had someone who knew what they were doing step through the code and explain what was going on. That is what I suggest you try.

Answer 2

The best book I've read on these topics is Thinking in C++ by Bruce Eckel. You can download it for free here.

Answer 3

The point at which I really got pointers was coding TurboPascal on a FatMac (around 1984 or so) - which was the native Mac language at the time.

The Mac had an odd memory model whereby when allocated the address the memory was stored in a pointer on the heap, but the location of that itself was not guaranteed and instead the memory handling routines returned a pointer to the pointer - referred to as a handle. Consequently to access any part of the allocated memory it was necessary to dereference the handle twice. It took a while, but constant practice eventually drove the lesson home.

Pascal's pointer handling is easier to grasp than C++, where the syntax doesn't help the beginner. If you are really and truly stuck understanding pointers in C then your best option might be to obtain a copy a a Pascal compiler and try writing some basic pointer code in it (Pascal is near enough to C you'll get the basics in a few hours). Linked lists and the like would be a good choice. Once you're comfortable with those return to C++ and with the concepts mastered you'll find that the cliff won't look so steep.

Answer 4

I used to have a problem understand pointers in pascal way back :) Once i started doing assembler pointers was really the only way to access memory and it just hit me. It might sound like a far shot, but trying out assembler (which is always a good idea to try and understand what computers is really about) probably will teach you pointers. Classes - well i don't understand your problem - was your schooling pure structured programming? A class is just a logical way of looking at real life models - you're trying to solve a problem which could be summed up in a number of objects/classes.

Answer 5

You may find this article by Joel instructive. As an aside, if you've been "working in C++ for some time" and have graduated in CS, you may have gone to a JavaSchool (I'd argue that you haven't been working in C++ at all; you've been working in C but using the C++ compiler).

Also, just to second the answers of hojou and nsanders, pointers are very fundamental to C++. If you don't understand pointers, then you don't understand the basics of C++ (acknowledging this fact is the beginning of understanding C++, by the way). Similarly, if you don't understand classes, then you don't understand the basics of C++ (or OO for that matter).

For pointers, I think drawing with boxes is a fine idea, but working in assembly is also a good idea. Any instructions that use relative addressing will get you to an understanding of what pointers are rather quickly, I think.

As for classes (and object-oriented programming more generally), I would recommend Stroustrups "The C++ Programming Language" latest edition. Not only is it the canonical C++ reference material, but it also has quite a bit of material on a lot of other things, from basic object-oriented class hierarchies and inheritance all the way up to design principles in large systems. It's a very good read (if not a little thick and terse in spots).

Answer 6

For Pointers:

I found this post had very thoughtful discussion about pointers. Maybe that would help. Are you familar with refrences such as in C#? That is something that actually refers to something else? Thats probably a good start for understanding pointers.

Also, look at Kent Fredric's post below on another way to introduce yourself to pointers.