Inside a class in C++

Lesson 1

This module explores some of the basic concepts of building classes in C++ and introduces you to the internal workings of the class construct.

The following will be discussed in this module:

How the scope resolution operator is used to define class scope
How to write external member functions for a class
Some basic concepts of function overloading
How nested classes work
The use of static and const members in a class
How to use the self-referential this pointer

At the end of the module, you will be given the opportunity to take a quiz covering these topics.

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.
For example:

 class CRectangle {
    int x, y;
  public:
    void setValues (int,int);
    int area (void);
  } rect;

Declares a class called CRectangle and an object of this class called rect.
This class contains four members:

two data members of type int (member x and member y) with private access (because private is the default access level) and
two member functions with public access: setValues() and area(),

of which for now we have only included their declaration, not their definition.