Creating objects

Define C++ Objects

A class provides the blueprints for objects, so basically an object is created from a class. We declare objects of a class with exactly the same sort of declaration that we declare variables of basic types. Following statements declare two objects of class Box:

Box Box1;          // Declare Box1 of type Box
Box Box2;          // Declare Box2 of type Box

Both of the objects Box1 and Box2 will have their own copy of data members.

Accessing the Data Members

The public data members of objects of a class can be accessed using the direct member access operator (.). Let us try the following example to make the things clear:

#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

class Box {
   public:
      double length;   // Length of a box
      double breadth;  // Breadth of a box
      double height;   // Height of a box
};

int main( ) {
   Box Box1;        // Declare Box1 of type Box
   Box Box2;        // Declare Box2 of type Box
   double volume = 0.0;     // Store the volume of a box here
 
   // box 1 specification
   Box1.height = 5.0; 
   Box1.length = 6.0; 
   Box1.breadth = 7.0;

   // box 2 specification
   Box2.height = 10.0;
   Box2.length = 12.0;
   Box2.breadth = 13.0;
 
   // volume of box 1
   volume = Box1.height * Box1.length * Box1.breadth;
   cout << "Volume of Box1 : " << volume <<endl;

   // volume of box 2
   volume = Box2.height * Box2.length * Box2.breadth;
   cout << "Volume of Box2 : " << volume <<endl;
 
   return 0;
}

When the above code is compiled and executed, it produces the following result:

Volume of Box1 : 210
Volume of Box2 : 1560

It is important to note that private and protected members can not be accessed directly using direct member access operator (.). We will learn how private and protected members can be accessed.