What is :: for?

[Lesshardtofind]

Hey,

Slow in here today I guess I'll throw something out here. Apparently google ignores :: in a search or it doesn't turn up many useful results.

I started playing around with a new library and it has you declare variables alot using :: such as

sf::window App(sf::VideoMode(800, 600, 32), "Window Title");

When I define classes I use that operator, but I never used one to declare before, nor have I ever written code that I was required to do so. So I had to wonder what am I doing? Or in another way why am I using the :: here?

[laserlight]

That is the scope resolution operator. My guess is that sf is a namespace name, hence sf::window is a name, e.g., a type name, in that namespace.

[Lesshardtofind]

That is the scope resolution operator

Thats exactly what I needed. Thanks!

Alot more useful things show up when googling "scope resolution operator" vs googling "what is ::?".

[iMalc]

Even better, read about all the operators here:
Operators in C and C++ - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Elysia]

When I define classes I use that operator, but I never used one to declare before, nor have I ever written code that I was required to do so. So I had to wonder what am I doing? Or in another way why am I using the :: here?

Yes, you have?
You know, everything in STL lies in the std namespace, so

vector<int> v;

won't work, but

std::vector<int> v;

and

using namespace std;
vector<int> v;

will both work.
Just substitute std and vector for something else and you have a namespace, such as sf and window.

[grumpy]

All classes/structs in C++ are alsoi associated with a scope with the same name as the class/struct.

So, given something like

sf::window App(sf::VideoMode(800, 600, 32), "Window Title");

sf may be either a namespace or a class/struct type.

[Neo1]

sf may be either a namespace or a class/struct type.

While that is true, in this particular case, it is a namespace, not a class:

SFML - Simple and Fast Multimedia Library