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C++ Flashcards: Object-Oriented Programming

C++ — Object-Oriented Programming Flashcards

20 interactive flashcards. Press Space to flip, rate 1-4 to schedule next review.

Intuition

OOP models software as interacting objects that bundle data with behaviour. Inheritance lets you reuse and specialise, a Dog is-an Animal but adds its own barking behaviour. Polymorphism lets you treat different derived types through a common base pointer, so a function accepting Animal& works identically for Dog, Cator Bird. The virtual dispatch mechanism is the glue that makes this work at runtime.

Common Pitfalls

  • Slicing: Passing a derived object by value to a function taking a base parameter, the derived part gets “sliced off” and virtual dispatch is lost. Always pass by pointer or reference.
  • Missing virtual destructor: Deleting a derived object through a base pointer without a virtual destructor causes undefined behaviour, the derived destructor never runs.
  • Diamond problem: Inheriting from two classes that share a common base without virtual inheritance leads to ambiguous base subobjects.

Cross-References

  • Types: Type system fundamentals including classes, inheritance, and polymorphism.
  • Resource Management: RAII and smart pointers for managing object lifetimes.
  • Templates and Metaprogramming: Template-based polymorphism as an alternative to virtual functions.