Error in constructor - C++

Question

I have just learnt some object oriented programming concepts in Python, but I want to transfer this knowledge to C++, and I have trouble with basic implementation that used to be easy using Python.

#include<iostream>
using namespace std;

class Animal{

    char name;
    int age;

    public:
    Animal(char name, int age);
};

Animal::Animal(char name, int age) {
    this->name = name;
    this->age = age;
}

int main()
{
    Animal dog ("Megg", 10);

    cout << "Name: " dog.name <<endl;

    return 0;
}

When I compile this code, I get a lot of messages, such as:

error: no matching function for call  to 'Animal::Animal(const char[5], int)'
note: Animal::Animal(char, int) <near match>
note: candidate expects 1 argument, 2 provided

Thanks!

Answer 1

you don't need to do this->name = name in your constructor definition

"Megg" is a string literal. You can cast "Megg" into const char * but not into a char (this was most likely causing your error).

or better yet. You can use the C++ Standard Library string class std::string

#include <iostream>
#include <string>

class Animal{

    std::string name;
    int age;

    public:
    Animal(std::string name, int age);
    std::string getName() const;
    int getAge() const;
};

Animal::Animal(std::string Name, int Age) {
    name = Name;
    age = Age;
}

std::string Animal::getName() const {
  return name;
}

int Animal::getAge() const {
   return age;
}

int main()
{
    Animal dog ("Megg", 10);

    std::cout << "Name: " << dog.getName() << std::endl; // Error in this line. Missing << between "Name: " and dog.name

    return 0;
}

Some additional edits:

You should avoid using using namespace std as it takes everything in the Standard Library (from the files you've included) and puts it in the global namespace. You can instead use the scope resolution operator :: as seen above.

When you start working with multiple libraries you may encounter that both have a class named vector or string, or functions with the same name. The way to avoid this is to specify what namespace you want to use.

or alteratively you can do the following:

using std::cout;
using std::endl;
using std::string;

Additionaly in order for you program to work you need a way to access your object's member variables. You could do this by making the variables public or the better practice is to add accessor functions.