Thread: I just dont get it could somebody help

I just read the turtorial on classes (OOP) and i just dont get how that works or what it does could somebody please tell me in english what i need to know?

also what is that program supposed to do?

C++ allows you to define your own classes, your own types. Say, for instance, you want to write a class to represent fractions. You'd write a class that has as its private data members the numerator and denominator. Then, you'd probably want to overload the insertion and extraction operators, the boolean operators, and the arithmetic operators for your fraction class. Once you do that, you can deal with your newly defined type easily.

Hmm, maybe that was a bit much.

Code:

class dog
{
public:
dog(){cout<<"A dog is being born."<<endl;}
~dog(){cout<<"All dogs go to heaven."<<endl;}
void speak(){cout<<"Woof!";}
string getBreed() const{return breed;}
void setBreed(string b){breed=b;}
private:
string breed;
};


int main()
{
  dog fido;
  fido.setBreed("Golden Retriever");
  cout<<"Fido says ";
  fido.speak();
  cout << endl << "Fido is a " << fido.getBreed() << endl;
  return 0;
}

I guess it helps if you have a good grasp of structures. I think of classes/objects as structures with functions:

You can have a structure with variables like Doug.Height and Doug.Age or Zerg.Height and Zerg.Age. If you have a class called Person and an object called Doug, you can also have a member function called Doug.IncrimentAge(), or Doug.GetHeight().

There is a lot of C++ to learn, so I'd recommend getting a book. I don't know how many "pages" there are in the tutorial, but Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days, by Jesse Liberty is about 750 pages! A good book will have more detailed explanations, and more examples than a short tutorial.

[EDIT]
The example in the tutorial doesn't do anythng. It's an incomplete "shell" class... just an outline to get you started. Here's another tutorial.

Where are these other tutorials located
I want to use them more often

I think i figured out what my problem is:

In the link above they have functions such as set_values is that a real funticion or it that what they are making?

also i keep on seeing people end cout<< "text" <<end1 what does the end1 part do the turtorials just start adding it but dont explain.

its not end1 its endl E N D L. endl is the same as saying /n except endl is a manipulator.