Mystring Class help..

[Flamer]

Hey,
I have an assignment for my Data structures class to write my own string class using character arrays with Dynamic Memory Allocation. Its way over due, and I still cant figure out how to do much of anything. Does anyone have a simplified string class where I could understand how to create the class and work on changing it to dynamic memory allocation on my own?

[twanvl]

A string class should look something like this:

class myString
{
private:
    char* data;
    unsigned int allocated;
public:
    //constructor
    myString() : data(0), allocated(0) {}
    myString(const myString& that)
    { /* Allocate memory, copy data from 'that' */ }
    //destructor
    ~mystring()
    { /* Free the memory allocated for 'data' */ }

    //operators
    myString& operator = (const myString& that)
    {
        // Ensure that 'data' is large enough, if not, free the current memory, and allocate more memory
        // Copy
    }
    // More functions:
    //    operator += for appending strings
    //    c_str() that returns 'data' with a terminating 0
    //    all of the operators again that take a char* instead of a myString
};

[Flamer]

Thanks alot.. I should be able to figure it out a little easier now.. I hope..

-Jason

[Flamer]

Okay so i'm working with the mystring class. Currently i am trying to overload the extraction operator. I came up with the code below, which I know wont show me the entire string but should display the first character of the string (i'll figure out how to actually do that later). But when I go to compile it with this I get these two error messages.

"Error E2080 mystring.cpp 28: 'mystring:perator <<(ostream &,const mystring &)' must be declared with one parameter

Error E2280 mystring.cpp 52: Member identifier expected in function operator <<(ostream &,const mystring &)"


//Class member description
ostream& operator <<(ostream&, const mystring&);

//My implementation of the extraction operator
ostream& mystring:perator <<(ostream& out, const mystring& tmp)
{
out<< tmp.(*theBuffer);
return out;
}


If anyone could explain to me what i'm doing wrong I would really appreciate it. I dont usually have this much trouble with classes, but it all doesnt come easy to me yet.

[twanvl]

operator << shouldn't be a member of the string class, if it is a member it has 3 parameters (the two you see, and the this pointer)

[CornedBee]

It can't be. If it was it would have only one parameter, but it wouldn't work the way it should.

It has to be a global function.