It’s a common question asked, especially in job interviews and college exams, the question of struct vs class in C++. Both concepts seem similar but if you go into detail, struct vs class is actually two different things. In C++, a struct is similar to a class except for the following differences:
- Since structs originally came from the C language, which is declared using “struct”, the same principle applies as a group of data elements are grouped together under one name. The members of the struct are public by default. With a class, members of the class are private by default.
- Since classes are private by default, classes have the advantage of setting the members of the class to either public, protected, or private.
- If you are deriving a struct from a class, default access for a base class/struct is public. When you are deriving a class, the default access is private.
To take advantage of the power of C++ for writing object-orientated programs, you will need to use classes. An analogy to understanding what classes do is that they are known as a blueprint of what is going to be implemented in a program. The code examples of writing a class and a struct are shown below. Both of them look the same but there needs to be a fundamental understanding of the two concepts.
Example Struct code
struct groceries
{
// members of the struct
string name;
int weight;
double price;
} chips, drinks; // Objects of the struct
Example class code
// Example of a class declaration in C++
//−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
class Groceries
{
// Members of the class
string name;
int weight;
double price;
int total();
};
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