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C++

Note: C++ is a superset of C.

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general
history
Hello World
structure
further reading: books on C++

general

nature: object oriented language; procedural language

history: An extension of C to provide object oriented programming constructs.

C++ was developed in 1983 by Bjarne Stroustrup at Bell Telephone Laboratories to extend C for object oriented programming.

Hello World example

#include <iostream.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
cout << "Hello World" << endl;
return 0;
}

structure

format: free form

lexical elements

source code character set: A C++ compiler may use any character set that includes at least the following characters: the 52 upper case and lower case alphabetic characters ( A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z ), the 10 decimal digits ( 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ), the blank or space character, and 29 designated graphic characters ( ! # % ^ & * ( ) - _ + = ~ [ ] \ | ; : ' " { } , . < > / ? ). Five formatting characters (backspace, horizontal tab, verticle tab, form feed, and carriage return) are often used in C++ (formatting characters are treated as spaces). The dollar sign ($) and the at sign (@) are also commonly used (but not required by the standard). Some form of line separator is required, but it doesn’t have to be an actual character or character sequence.

execution character set: The execution character set for C++ is required to have the standard characters of the source code character set, plus a null character and a newline character. The null character must have the value 0 and is used to mark the end of strings. The newline character is used to divide character streams into lines during input or output. Run time libraries may convert between the newline character and some other character(s) (or lack of characters) during execution (such as compacting the carriage return/line feed combination into the newline character or generating the newline character at the end of a logical record or transforming between various record separators and the newline character).

white space: White space in C++ includes the blank (space character), horizontal tab, end-of-line, vertical tab, form feed, and comments. White space is ignored by the compiler (except when required to separate tokens or when used in a character or string constant), and therefore can be used freely by the programmer to make the program easy for a human to read. Some implementations of C++ treat nonstandard source characters as either white space or line breaks.

line termination: Each line in a C++ source program is terminated with an end-of-line character or character sequence. Optionally, certain formatting characters (such as carriage return, form feed or vertical tab) can also terminate lines. An empty line is a line that consists of only a terminating character or character sequence or white space and line termination. A logical source line can be continued past a line termination by using the backslash character (\) or the ANSI C trigraph ??/ immediately before the line termination. String constants and preprocessor command lines can cross line breaks through the use of logical source lines. In some implementations of C++, tokens can also cross line breaks through the use of logical source lines.

line length: Many C++ compilers impose a maximum line length (both for physical source lines and for logical source lines).

escape characters: The backslash character (\) is used as an escape character, allowing a programmer to include characters that would normally have a special meaning for the compiler.

alternative characters: Some C++ compilers support the ANSI C trigraphs (see C).

multibyte characters: C++ supports both wide characters and multibyte characters.

Wide characters are binary characters that are more than one byte, typically used for expressing large alphabets.

Multibyte characters are the external representation of a wide character, in either the source or exeuction character set.

comments: Comments are started by the occurence of the two character sequence /* at any time other than within a character or string constant. Comments are terminated by the two character sequence */. Comments can also start with // and end with the end of the line.

tokens

A C++ compiler always collects characters into the longest possible tokens, even if the result is not valid C++. White space always divides tokens. White space must be used to separate an identifier, reserved word, integer constant, floating point constant from a following identifier, reserved word, integer constant, or floating point constant.

operators: C++ has 15 simple operators ( ! % ^ & * - + = ~ | . < > / ? ), 11 compound assignment operators ( += -= *= /= %= <<= >>= &= ^= |= == ), and 10 other compound operators ( -> ++ -- << >> <= >= != && || ).

separators: C++ has 9 separator tokens ( ( ) [ ] { } , ; : ).

related software

Price listings are for courtesy purposes only and may be changed by the referenced businesses at any time without notice.

We are working on providing a second source.

C++Builder 4.0 Enterprise Suite; Borland; high performance C++ development for CORBA and COM distributed solutions; Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT 4.0 (Service Pack 3); $2,479.00

C++Builder 4.0 Professional; Borland; high performance ANSI C++ visual development; Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT 4.0 (Service Pack 3); $559.95

Metrowerks CodeWarrior Discover Programming for Mac 5.0; C, C++, Java, and Pascal; PowerMac; $49.95

Metrowerks CodeWarrior Discover Programming for Windows 5.0; C, C++, Java, and Pascal; Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT; $49.95

geek humor

“C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg.” —Bjarne Stroustrup on C++

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