Arrays of Objects

Question 1

How do you declare and initialize an array of objects so that all the objects in the array run the default constructor?

Answer 1

Declare the array of the object type and its size but don’t specify any objects.

// Creates an array of 10 Objects using the default constructor
Object myArray[10];

Question 2

How do you declare and initialize an array of objects such that each object in the array can use a specific constructor?

Answer 2

Declare the array of the object type and its size and then explicitly call the constructor in the assignment.

// Creates an array of 3 Objects using different constructors for each

Object myArray[3] = { Object(2,1), Object(), Object(48) };

Question 3

When you call a constructor in an object array’s initialization, what must you do for default objects?

Answer 3

Call them explicitly.

// The first object in the array uses the default constructor, which is called there explicitly.
Object myArray[2] = { Object(), Object(5,8) };

Question 4

How do you call member data/functions for an object contained in an array?

Answer 4

There are several ways, but it’s the same basic syntax as calling normally, except that the objects don’t have variable names.

objectName.memberName;

The most basic way is through array notation:

arr[1].Show();
arr[2].value1;

You can also use pointers:

Object * oPtr = &arr[3];

// These are functionally identical
oPtr->Show();
(*oPtr).value1;