Using Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 with
Data Structures and Other Objects (Second Edition)

These are the changes that I needed to make to ANSI Standard C++ code in order to use Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0. I have applied these changes to all of the code from Data Structures and Other Objects (Second Edition) by Michael Main and Walter Savitch. You may download a zip file containing all of the modified code from:

www.cs.colorado.edu/~main/vccode.zip

Please let me know if you spot any other features of ANSI Standard C++ that are not supported by Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0.

Michael Main (main@colorado.edu)

1. It is easiest to use the file extension .cpp instead of .cxx, so I have changed each file extension to .cpp.

2. These items from <cstdlib> are not part of std in VC++ 6.0:
   • rand
   • size_t
   So, for example, you must change any std::size_t to simply size_t.

3. Initialization of static member constants in a header file is forbidden. Therefore, I suggest that you use an enum instead. For example, instead of

       static const size_t CAPACITY = 30;
   

   You can use this enum member:

       enum { CAPACITY = 30 };
   

   When you use this enum instead of a static member constant, you must also delete the member constant's declaration from the implementation file. Also, some uses of the constant in an implementation might need a type cast back to the size_t or int type. For example:

       fill_n(data, (size_t) CAPACITY, 0);
   

4. A few programs have this error message:
   error C2871: 'std' : does not exist or is not a namespace
To fix this, remove the directive for using namespace std;. (But remove the directive only if the error occurs.) This problem is caused because certain header files (such as cstdlib and cassert do not declare the std namespace in VC++ 6.0.

5. In VC++, the std::string class is defined within <iostream>. Therefore, in the str_demo.cpp program of Chapter 4 we must specify the complete type name main_savitch_4::string if we want to use our own string class.

• Chapter 4:mystring.h must use std::istream and std::ostream.
• Chapters 7/8: stack2.h, stack2.template and queue2.template must use main_savitch_6B:: with each list function, such as main_savitch_6B::list_clear. (This can't be done with a using directive because the classes are template classes. On some compilers, this would be handled automatically by the Koenig lookup described on page 359, but VC++ does not seem to use the Koenig lookup in this situation, perhaps because it is within a template.)
• Chapter 14: blob.cxx is missing the directive to use std.

Each program can be put in a project by itself. For example, demo2.cpp from Chapter 2 can be put in a project called demo2 by these steps:
• Ctnl-N and click the Project Tab.
• Click Win 32 Console Application.
• Type a project name such as demo2
• Type the location of the directory that contains the source code for the project
• Click the button to create a new workspace
• Make sure that the Win32 platform box is checked
• Click OK
• In the console application box, push the "empty project" button and click Finish.
• Once the project has been created and is open, go to the Project tab, Add to Project, Files. From the file browser, you can double click on each .cpp file that is part of the projects. If you wish, you may also add the .h files to the project, but this doesn't seem to be required in order to build (they will show up as external dependencies in the file view). You also do not need to add the .template files to the project (they also show up as external dependencies.)

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