LAB1

MTH2008 Scientific Computing LAB1

Objectives

1. Learn the basics of using Microsoft Visual Studio, or Microsoft Visual Studio Code.
2. Compile your first C++ program.

Tasks

Task 1: Writing a simple C++ program

Either open/install Visual Studio or VS Code, using guides on Blackboard if required.

Then, create a new project, selecting the Win32 Console Application C++ template, if possible. You can name this new project something simple, like lab1-task1.cpp.

Your new project should start with some simple code, but you can remove that. Instead, replace it with this:

/**
 * @file basic_use-using_cout.cpp
 * @author YOUR NAME (YOUR EMAIL)
 * @brief Explore using the cout statement
 * @version 0.1.0
 * @date 20xx-xx-xx
 *
 * @copyright Copyright (c) 20xx
 *
 */
#include <iostream>
 
 
int main() {
    /* Print a welcome message */
    std::cout << "Welcome to C++ Programming\n";
 
	/* Return 0 to represnt success */
    return 0;
}

Afterwards, you can compile and build the code, checking if any errors occur. If not, then feel free to experiment with the code to see what happens! Hopefully it’ll print Welcome to C++ Programming and then say something like Press any key to continue....

Task 2: Exploring the welcome program

For this task, we’ll break down the program. Make sure to comment the code so you remember!

First of all, comments in C++ are represent with /* or //, but you need to make sure to stay consistent with one style. We’ll use /* for the rest of the course, so we can differentiate between docstrings easier - these are the big block comments like at the start of the welcome program.

This docstring explains to anyone reading it (including any documentation building programs) what the filename is, who wrote it, etc.

Next, we have the include statement: #include <iostream>. This “includes” the package with all of the input/output stream functions, like the std::cout command we used. It’s part of the standard namespace (packages included with a default C++ installation), hence we use the std:: part.

Optionally, we could also include the line using namespace std; so that we don’t have to write std:: repeatedly, but that can cause package conflicts so it’s common practice not to.

The main function then return an int type - these will be explained more in later sessions. This is because the main function always returns $0$ or $1$ for success or failure, respectively, hence we return $0$ at the end to indicate a successful run.

Finally, the cout function stands for character out, which prints out characters to the console with the insertion operator <<, inserting data into the function. All lines then end with a ; to tell the compiler where lines end.

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