Chapter One
A Crash Course
in C++
The goal of this chapter is to cover briefly the most important parts of C++ so that you have a base
of knowledge before embarking on the rest of the book. This chapter is not a comprehensive lesson
in the C++ programming language. The very basic points (like what a program is and the difference
between = and ==) are not covered. The very esoteric points (remember what a union is? how
about the volatile keyword?) are also omitted. Certain parts of the C language that are less relevant
in C++ are also left out, as are parts of C++ that get in depth coverage in later chapters.
This chapter aims to cover the parts of C++ that programmers encounter on a daily basis. If you've
been away from C++ for a while and you've forgotten the syntax for a for loop, you'll find that in
this chapter. If you're fairly new to C++ and you don't understand what a reference variable is,
you'll learn t ...
read full excerpt from Professional C++ ebook
