Introduction to C++ Programming Language in Eclipse IDE

This article provides an introduction to C++ programming language in Eclipse IDE. It covers challenges faced during IDE setup, data types, string manipulation, pointers, and iostream library headers.

Running head: INTRODUCTION TO C++ PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE IN ECLIPSE
IDE
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Introduction to c++ programming language in Eclipse IDE
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Part I
There are several challenges that Eclipse IDE developers encounter on their first use of
the environment. During the IDE setup, the installation of the C and C++ development toolkit
(CDT), which is Eclipse plug-ins that provide both C and C++ development was a challenge.
The issue was as a result of a dependency conflict during its integration into the eclipse IDE. The
conflict dependency error encountered was due to the existence of some packages that are
packaged in CDT and already defined in Eclipse IDE. The second issue faced with Eclipse IDE
was during project execution. The project was failing on launch due to lack as it could not find
required execution binaries. The project setup was the issue and once all required parameters
were configured, a project executed successfully.
C++ has different data types, which are either user-defined data types and built-in data
types. User-defined data types supported in C++ are unions, classes, enumerations, and
structures. Both structures and unions are used to group similar data types into a single name. C+
+ has been extended to include classes, union, and structures which serve as the basis of Object-
Oriented programming (OOP). A Class in C++ defines both functions and data required in the
object of some classes (Kishor, 2014). Enumerations are used as a named integer constant which
can be used to specify the values which can be assigned to enumeration variables. Build-in data
types which are available in C++ void, integral and floating-point. Both integral and floating-
point can take various types of modifiers, which are used to determine the range, and sizes of the
subjected data types. Integral data types can store integers, characters, float, and double. There
are some notable differences between Java and C++ data types. In Java, objects are not treated as
values, but in C++ they are values. On the same note, value semantics are used by default in C++
but java makes use of references semantic. Strings in C++ are error-prone and can be

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compromised by attackers which occurs due to memory allocation by programmers. In this
regard, it is the responsibility of the programmers to consider safe memory allocation and
deallocation if not in use.
class assignment{
string name;
int marks;
public:
void student() {
cout << "Enter student name"<< endl;
cin>>name;
cout<<"Enter student marks"<<endl;
cin>>marks; }
void output() {
cout << "student Name:"<<name<< endl;
cout << "Student Marks:"<<marks<< endl;
}};
int main()
{
assignment A;
A.student();
A.output();
}
References
Kishor, N. R. (2014). International Journal of Advance Research in Computer Science and
Management Studies. International Journal, 2(3), pp. 243-246.
Part II

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String manipulation in C++ is very common as users are tricked to process a given data
that is passed as string and later content of the data is changed. Some of the string manipulation
errors are; improper bounding of string copies which occurs when required data is copied from to
the other in a fixed-length character array. The next string manipulation error in C++ is caused
by both copying and concatenating strings (Seacord, 2016). Such errors are common and prone
to happen because many of the C++ standard libraries that perform such operations make use of
unbounded copy operations. The copy and concatenation error can be avoided by making use of
strlen ( ) function to allocated required memory dynamically. The unbound copy can be avoided
by calling limited extraction operation to a specific number of characters in cases where
ios_base:: width has been set to greater than zero. It resolves the error because extraction call
operation with is reset to zero which makes it secure. Failing to reset copy and concatenation
function to zero value upon its use can be used to point out some security vulnerability in the C+
+ program. By inputting more than one character in the below program results to out of bounds
write operation.
int main()
{
char huf[1];
cin >> huf;
cout << "Print:" << huf << endl;
}
References
Seacord, R., 2016. Secure coding in C and C++ of strings and integers. IEEE security &
privacy, 4(1), pp.74-76.

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Part III
In C++, pointers are known to be variables used to hold the required memory address.
Pointers are robust in such a way that they can store either single or single variables or some
addresses of array cells. Some programming benefits of using pointers are; it increases program
execution speed, it also reduces both complexity and length of the code and makes it possible to
access variables defined from outside of the function (Flater & Guthrie, 2013). Arrays are useful
when using pointers because they can be used to point and pass the required variables. The
difference between the address-of operator (&) and dereference operator (*) is that the address
operator can make use of Ivalue such as & var and dereference operator (*) can take any pointer
variable such as *ptr_var.
int k[2];
int* ptr;
ptr = &k[2];
References
Flater, D., & Guthrie, W. F. (2013). A case study of performance degradation attributable to run-
time bounds checks on C++ vector access. Journal of research of the National Institute of
Standards and Technology, (5)118, 260.
Part IV

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In C++ programming, use of <iostream> library headers which are used to define
required standard streams of objects either input/output may pose some vulnerabilities during
execution. Using iostream header in the program may result in an automatic call of the other
related headers like <ostream> and <istream> (Beard, Li & Chamberlain, 2017). Some headers
are used for reading data types such as strings that are prone to manipulation. Vulnerability
identification can be done by identifying some headers that may cause security threats when
called in any program.
#include <iostream>
#include <math.h>
using namespace std;
int main(){
int p;
cout<<"Enter value p"<<endl;
cin>>p;
cout<<"The square root is:"<<sqrt(p)<<endl;
}
References
Beard, J. C., Li, P., & Chamberlain, R. D. (2017). RaftLib: a C++ template library for high
performance stream parallel processing. The International Journal of High
Performance Computing Applications, 31(5), 391-404.

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