Feb 94 Top 10

Volume Number: 10

Issue Number: 2

Column Tag: Think top 10

Mixing C++ and the Toolbox

By Christopher Prinos, Symantec Technical Support, Symantec Corp.

Note: Source code files accompanying article are located on MacTech CD-ROM or

source code disks.

This is a monthly column written by Symantec’s Technical Support Engineers

intended to provide you with information on Symantec products. Each month we cover

either a specific application of tools or a “Q&A” list.

As the use of C++ continues to grow in the Macintosh community, programmers

are faced with the challenge of learning ways to bring the added capabilities of the C++

language to their Macintosh development projects. A large number of people that

starting to learn C++. Bringing the two together is commonly described in the context

of class libraries like the THINK Class Library and MacApp, and although these

libraries provide powerful vehicles to develop object-oriented Macintosh

applications, they may be a bit overwhelming at first. Those coming up to speed in

C++ are often looking a for nudge in the right direction to start their Mac specific

projects, without having to assimilate a large class library with its possibly subtle

interaction between a large number of classes.

This article will take a more straightforward approach. We will build a C++

class using features like operator overloading, nested classes, and reference counting

to implement a wrapper for QuickDraw regions that allows us to use them in a more

intuitive and elegant manner. The final result will be a stand-alone class that doesn’t

rely on a supporting cast of other classes to be effective, showing a concrete example of

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