A variable is defined in C++ by stating its type, the variable name, and a semi-colon to end the statement:
int my_int;
More than one variable can be defined in the same statement as long as they share the same type.
The names of the variables should be separated by commas:
unsigned int my_int, playerScore; long area, width, length;
The my_int and playerScore variables both are unsigned integers.
The second statement creates three long integers: area, width, and length. Because these integers share the same type, they can be created in one statement.
A variable name can be any combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and underscore characters _ without any spaces.
C++ is case sensitive, so the my_int variable differs from ones named my_Int or my_INT.
A variable is assigned a value using the = operator, which is called the assignment operator.
The?following statements show it in action to create an integer named my_int with the value 13,000:
unsigned int my_int; my_int = 13000;
A variable can be assigned an initial value when it is created:
unsigned int my_int = 13000;
This is called initializing the variable.
The following code uses variables and assignments to compute the area of a rectangle and display the result.
#include <iostream> int main() /*from w w w .j a v a2 s .co m*/ { // set up width and length unsigned short width = 26, length; length = 40; // create an unsigned short initialized with the // result of multiplying width by length unsigned short area = width * length; std::cout << "Width: " << width << "\n"; std::cout << "Length: " << length << "\n"; std::cout << "Area: " << area << "\n"; return 0; }