9.1. Time¶
As a second example of a user-defined structure, we will define a type
called Time
, which is used to record the time of day. The various
pieces of information that form a time are the hour, minute and second,
so these will be the instance variables of the structure.
The first step is to decide what type each instance variable should be.
It seems clear that hour
and minute
should be integers. Just to
keep things interesting, let’s make second
a double
, so we can
record fractions of a second.
The active code below shows what the structure definition looks like.
We can create a Time
object in the usual way.
The state diagram for this object looks like this:
The word instance is sometimes used when we talk about objects, because every object is an instance (or example) of some type. The reason that instance variables are so-named is that every instance of a type has a copy of the instance variables for that type.
struct Price { int dollar; int cents; }; int main() { Price sandwich = { 3, 45 }; Price coffee = { 2, 50 }; Price pastry = { 2, 0 }; }
struct Price { int dollar; int cents; }; int main() { Price sandwich = { 3, 45 }; Price coffee = { 2, 50 }; Price pastry = { 2, 0 }; }
Try writing the printTime
function in the commented section
of the active code below. printTime
should print out the time
in the HOUR:MINUTE:SECONDS format. If you get stuck, you can reveal the extra problem
at the end for help.
Let’s write the code for the printTime
function. printTime
should print out the time in the HOUR:MINUTE:SECONDS format.