What is a POD- Plain Old Data ?

[KAMANA]

While studying C++ I have come accross a term called POD - Plain Old Data. But even after reading it I am not getting what exactly is POD type ? I have started learning C++ very recently. I am already confused with many other topics of C++ and now I am assigned to get the information of POD type. Please help me.

[Reegan]

Well to give a proper definition of POD(Plain Old Data) type will be quite confusing. First lets describe a POD class. A POD class has no user-defined destructor, no user-defined copy assignment operator and no non-static data members. A POD type in C++ is thus said to be as either a scalar type or a POD class. A POD type's non-static data members must always be public.

[kelfro]

"POD" is an acronym for Plain Old Data in C++. This usually indicates the areas of substantive compatibility between comparable data types of C++ and C. POD types in C++ are POD class types and Scalar types. The terms POD and POD objects are often used interchangeably refering to the C++. Scalar types iclude: enumeration types, arithmetic types, pointer types and pointer-to-member types. POD class types relates to the aggregate classes, i.e. POD-struct types and aggregate unions, i.e. POD-union types, which should not contain these following as members: non-static data (including arrays) of any pointer-to-member type, non-static data of any reference type, non-static data (including arrays) of any non-POD class type, user-defined destructor and user-defined copy assignment operator.

[opaper]

I can understand how confusing and difficult is this POD concept for a new user. I too faced similar issue when I started C++. POD is simply a short form for Plain Old Data which is sometimes also referred as POD type. POD is said to be a struct or class with no members except for the data members. To simply we can say a POD class is a structure that is compatible with C.