C++ classes and information hiding

[froggy1976]

I have written this code and it compiles and works just fine but I would like to put the string day[7]; as private since the days of the week will never change and I am required to have at least one private member in my code. When I simply move it the code compiles but errors out like crazy! Can anyone help me? I hesitate to post my whole code as I would like my work to remain my work so here is the first part without the main function(even though what I am posting is the most important part).

#include<iostream>
#include<string>
using namespace std;

class dayOfTheWeek
{
public:
	string day[7];
	
	dayOfTheWeek();//constructor
	~dayOfTheWeek();//destructor
	
	
	int dayNum;
	int tempDay;
	void getDay(int &day);
	void setDay(int _day);
	void printDay();
	
	void plusOneDay();
	void minusOneDay();
	void addDays(int _changeDay);
private:
	

};

dayOfTheWeek::dayOfTheWeek()
{
	dayNum=0;
	day[0]="Sunday";
	day[1]="Monday";
	day[2]="Tuesday";
	day[3]="Wednesday";
	day[4]="Thursday";
	day[5]="Friday";
	day[6]="Saturday";
	
};
dayOfTheWeek::~dayOfTheWeek()
{
}


void dayOfTheWeek::printDay()
{
	cout << "Today is: " << day[dayNum]  << endl << endl;
};

void dayOfTheWeek::setDay(int _day)
{
	dayNum=_day;
};

void dayOfTheWeek::getDay(int &day)
{
	day=dayNum;
};

void dayOfTheWeek::plusOneDay()
{
	dayNum++;
};

void dayOfTheWeek::minusOneDay()
{
	dayNum--;
};

void dayOfTheWeek::addDays(int _changeDay)
{
	tempDay =(dayNum + _changeDay);
	dayNum =(tempDay%7);
};

[mitrmkar]

I would like to put the string day[7]; as private since the days of the week will never change

Given the above code, you might have the string day[7] as a private member variable. So you must be doing something illegal in the code that you did not post.

Furthermore, why not make that a private static const member variable, so you'd have

class dayOfTheWeek
{
public:
    // <snip>
private:
    static const std::string days[7];
};

// and outside the class declaration ...
const std::string dayOfTheWeek::days[7] = 
{
    "Sunday",
    "Monday",
    "Tuesday",
    "Wednesday",
    "Thursday",
    "Friday",
    "Saturday"
};

If you don't make it a static member variable, then every instance of the dayOfTheWeek class has an unnecessary copy of that data (wasting memory).

[jonsca]

Also, your method definitions, e.g.,

void dayOfTheWeek::printDay()
{
	cout << "Today is: " << day[dayNum]  << endl << endl;
};

and onward should not end with a semicolon after the brace (you do still need the ones at the end of your class declaration and your const array).

[mrnutty]

Also, your method definitions, e.g.,

void dayOfTheWeek::printDay()
{
	cout << "Today is: " << day[dayNum]  << endl << endl;
};

and onward should not end with a semicolon after the brace (you do still need the ones at the end of your class declaration and your const array).

That should not matter.

[jonsca]

That should not matter.

That's my bad. I guess I had never seen it done that way. Apologies to the OP.

[mitrmkar]

That's my bad. I guess I had never seen it done that way. Apologies to the OP.

With e.g. GCC's -pedantic/-pedantic-errors options switched on, the code won't compile. So no reason for apologies :).