Week 9: Defining Types : Enums, Typedef and Structs

Learning objectives:

Upon finishing this learning module, you should be able to:
  • Use enums and typedefs to improve code readability and safety
  • Use structs to represent heterogeneous collections of data

Deadlines This Week:

  • Monday 11:59PM - Assignment 8
  • Friday 11:59PM - Enumerations & Structs CPPLab

Readings & Activities:

Monday
  • Enums, Typedef & Namespaces
  • Do Enum CPPLab
  • See Activity outline section below for readings
Tuesday
  • Bitflags
  • Structs
  • Do Struct CPPLab
  • See Activity outline section below for readings
Wednesday
  • Structs and arrays
Friday
  • Photochop - make sure to unpack the .zip file and open the existing project. If you try to open files one at a time they will not work. One question on final will involve using the Image struct to write a filter that would modify an image.

Online Activity Outline:

This week we are hitting some topics that are not covered in the regular part of the book. It is more important than usual that you check out the code samples in the Classroom slides section.

Enums & Typedef

  • Read learncpp.com's enum page and the book's online enum supplement
  • Read leancpp.com's Typedef page
  • This video adds a couple important points about enums and typedef's - watch it after reading the pages listed above:
  • Do Enums CPPLab
  • Bit flags are a similar idea to enums - a way to represent multiple options, but unlike enums, you can have a variable that is the combination of two values. This video introduces the basic idea:

    You can find a bitflag tutorial here. You do not need to become an expert with them, but definitely need to recognize what is going on when you see code like BOLD | ITALIC.

Structs

  • Read learncpp.com's struct page
  • These videos (and the accompanying slides and example code in the Classroom Files link) introduce some concepts that are not covered in the reading:
    Struct Basics
     Structs and Arrays
  • Do the structs CPPLab by Friday

Start work on the assignment - this final assignment has a longer deadline week, but it does require a bit of work to get set up and going. The FinalExample.cpp from the Structs And Arrays video should be helpful in figuring out how to structure your data/program - make sure to get the source code from Classroom files and check it out.

Photochop

  • This video introduces the PhotoChop project (see Classroom files link for project and PDF guide file). It puts together different concepts from throughout the course and gives you experience going into a codebase and working with code you did not write (this is what most software developers spend most of their time doing):
  • PhotoChop mini-assignment (turned in through elearn but scored with CPPLabs) is to make (at least) two new image functions - you should make one each from two different categories (Create New Image, Basic Image, Complex Image Modifcation, Moving Pixels, Combining Pixels, and Multiple Files). Due Friday of week 10.
  • I will use Photochop as the basis for one question on the final. It contains a moderately complex structure you should already be familiar with, meaning I can use it to ask you to write some code without having to spend a lot of time figuring out a new array I'm asking you to work with.

Classroom slides/examples:

Directory of files from the week
Right click files and save to your computer

Assignment:

Assignment #9 (due Sunday before FINALS week). No late work will be accepted for assignment 9.