structure get and put

Example by: Ira Oldham, References: Savitch eighth edition, section 10.2; Gaddis seventh edition, section 13.2

We will often need short member functions to get member values and do other simple tasks.

1  struct Sum
2  {
3    int a;
4    int b;
5    int getA() {return a;}
6    int getB() {return b;}
7    void putA(int value) {a = value;}
8    void putB(int value) {b = value;}
9    int sum()
10   {
11     return a + b;
12   }
13 };
14 int main(void)
15 {
16   Sum x;
17   int result;
18   x.putA(3);
19   x.putB(4);
20   result = x.sum();
21   cout << "x.a: " << x.getA() << endl;
22   cout << "x.b: " << x.getB() << endl;
23   cout << "sum: " << x.sum()  << endl;
24   return 0;
25 }

x.a: 3
x.b: 4
sum: 7

• line 5 is a member function that will get the value of a
• line 7 is a member function that will put a value into a
• line 6 and 8 are member functions to get and put b

Member functions can be used to get and put valued from a structure. Short member functions are often used to manage member data.