One of the main goals of C++ is to facilitate the reuse of code. Public inheritance is one mechanism for achieving this goal, but it’s not the only one. This chapter investigates other choices. One technique is to use class members that are themselves objects of another class. This is referred to as
Chapter 10, “Objects and Classes,” introduces function templates. In this chapter we’ll look at class templates, which provide another way of reusing code. A class template lets you define a class in generic terms. Then you can use the template to create specific classes defined for specific types. For example, you could define a general stack template and then use the template to create one class that represents a stack of int values and another class that represents a stack of double values. You could even generate a class that represents a stack of stacks.
Classes with Object Members
Let’s begin with classes that include class objects as members. Some classes, such as the string class or the standard C++ class templates discussed in Chapter 16, “The string Class and the Standard Template Library,” offer convenient ways of representing components of a more extensive class. Let’s look at a particular example now.
What is a student? Someone enrolled in a school? Someone engaged in thoughtful investigation? A refugee from the harsh exigencies of the real world? Someone with an identifying name and a set of quiz scores? Clearly, the last definition is a totally inadequate characterization of a person, but it is well suited for a simple computer representation. So let’s develop a Student class based on that definition.
Simplifying a student to a name and a set of quiz scores suggests using a class with two members: one to represent the name and one to represent the scores. For the name, you could use a character array, but that puts a size limitation on the name. Or you could use a char pointer and dynamic memory allocation. However, as Chapter 12, “Classes and Dynamic Memory Allocation,” illustrates, that requires a lot of supporting code. Better yet, you could use an object of a class for which someone has already done all the work. For example, you could use an object of the String class (see Chapter 12) or of the standard C++ string class. The simpler choice is the string class because the C++ library already provides all the implementation code as well as a superior implementation. (To use the String class, you’d have to make the string1.cpp implementation file part of your project.)
Representing the quiz scores presents similar choices. You could use a fixed-size array, which places a size limitation. You could use dynamic memory allocation and provide a large body of supporting code. You could use your own design of a class, using dynamic memory allocation to represent an array. You could look for a standard C++ library class that is capable of representing the data.
Developing your own class is not out of the question. A simple version wouldn’t be that difficult because an array of double shares many similarities with an array of char, so you could base the design of an array-of-double class on the String class design. And in fact, that is what earlier editions of this book do.
But, of course, it is even easier if the library already provides a suitable class, and it does: the valarray class.
The valarray Class: A Quick Look
The valarray class is supported by the valarray header file. As its name suggests, the class is targeted to deal with numeric values (or with classes with similar properties), so it supports operations such as summing the contents and finding the largest and smallest values in an array. So that it can handle different data types, valarray is defined as a template class. Later, this chapter goes into how to define template classes, but all you need to know now is how to use one.
The template aspect means that you have to provide a specific type when declaring an object. To do so when declaring an object, you follow the identifier valarray with angle brackets that contain the desired type:
valarray
valarray
