Chapter Summary

Types are fundamental to all programming in C++.

Each type defines the storage requirements and the operations that may be performed on all objects of that type. The language provides a set of fundamental built-in types such as int and char. These types are closely tied to their representation on the machine's hardware.

Types can be nonconst or const; a const object must be initialized and its value may not be changed. In addition, we can define compound types, such as references. A reference provides another name for an object. A compound type is a type that is defined in terms of another type.

The language lets us define our own types by defining a class. The library uses the class facility to provide a set of higher-level abstractions such as the IO and string types.

C++ is a statically typed language: Variables and functions must be declared before they are used. A variable can be declared many times but defined only once. It is almost always a good idea to initialize variables when you define them.