Object-Oriented Social Network

A terminal-based C++ social networking application built around object-oriented design, relationship management, and file-backed persistence.

Features

• Account registration, validation, login, and profile updates
• User search and profile discovery
• Post creation and personal timelines
• Likes and comments on user posts
• Friend requests, approvals, and friend lists
• Direct messages between connected users
• Group creation, discovery, membership, and discussions
• Page creation, discovery, and membership
• Persistent users, posts, relationships, chats, groups, and pages
• Interactive terminal session with a clear command menu

Core Model

Component	Responsibility
User	Account identity, credentials, and profile information
Post	User-authored timeline content
Comment	Responses attached to posts
Message	Timestamped direct and group messages
Community	Shared model for groups and public-interest pages
SocialNetwork	Validation, authentication, persistence, relationships, content, and session workflows

Technology Stack

Layer	Technology
Language	C++17
Interface	Interactive terminal
Architecture	Object-oriented classes and service-style manager
Persistence	Atomically written, encoded TSV records
Build	CMake or direct compiler invocation
Supported Compilers	GCC, MinGW, MSVC, Clang

Project Structure

.
|-- src/
|   `-- main.cpp
|-- .vscode/
|   |-- tasks.json
|   `-- launch.json
|-- CMakeLists.txt
|-- .gitignore
`-- README.md

Runtime records are created automatically inside the ignored data/ directory.

Build With CMake

cmake -S . -B build
cmake --build build

Run on Windows with a Visual Studio generator:

.\build\Debug\social-network.exe

Run with a single-configuration generator:

.\build\social-network.exe

Run on Linux or macOS:

./build/social-network

Build Directly With MinGW

g++ -std=c++17 -Wall -Wextra -pedantic src/*.cpp -o SocialNetwork.exe
.\SocialNetwork.exe

Build Directly On Linux

g++ -std=c++17 -Wall -Wextra -pedantic src/*.cpp -o social-network
./social-network

Run In VS Code

The included VS Code configuration targets the Microsoft C++ debugger:

• Ctrl+Shift+B builds the application
• F5 builds and launches it in the integrated terminal

Update the compiler path in .vscode/tasks.json when Visual Studio is installed in a different location.

Application Workflow

1. Start the program and choose signup or login.
2. Register with a valid password and YYYY-MM-DD birthdate.
3. Sign in to open the persistent session menu.
4. Create posts, search users, manage friendships, message friends, or browse groups and pages.
5. Use logout to return to the authentication screen.
6. Use exit to close the application.

Persistence

Runtime state is stored in the ignored data/ directory:

• Records use percent-encoded, tab-separated fields so user input cannot corrupt the file structure.
• Writes use temporary files and atomic replacement to reduce partial-write corruption.
• User IDs include time and random entropy, avoiding same-second collisions.
• Relationships, reactions, memberships, and requests are deduplicated.
• Passwords are stored as salted digests rather than plaintext.

The credential digest is intentionally dependency-free for this educational terminal project. A network-facing production system should replace it with Argon2id, scrypt, or bcrypt and use a transactional database.

Verification

Run the built-in end-to-end self-test:

.\SocialNetwork.exe --self-test

The test validates registration, duplicate prevention, login, posts, unique reactions, comments, friendships, messaging, communities, and persistence after reloading the application.