The Waite Group's C++ Primer Plus, Third Edition

An Abstract Data Type

The Stock class is pretty specific. Often, however, programmers define classes to represent more general concepts. For example, classes are a good way to implement what computer scientists describe as abstract data types, or ADTs, for short. As the name suggests, an ADT describes a data type in a general fashion, without bringing in language or implementation details. Consider, for example, the stack. The stack is a way of storing data in which data is always added to or deleted from the top of the stack. C++ programs, for example, use a stack to manage automatic variables. As new automatic variables are generated, they are added to the top of the stack. When they expire, they are removed from a stack.

Let's describe the ...