C++ Demystified(c) A Self-Teaching Guide

Chapter 1

1. A computer program consists of step-by-step instructions to the computer from a computer programmer.

2. Computers can store greater amounts of information, can recall that information more quickly and accurately, and can perform calculations faster and more accurately.

3. A programming language is a language that resembles the structure and syntax of human language, and that is used by computer programmers to write instructions for computers.

4. C++ is a good programming language to learn because it is very widely used in industry and in education, and also because many other programming languages, including Java and C#, are based on C++.

5. A function is a group of related instructions, also called statements, which together perform a particular task.

6. A C++ program must have one main function, no more, no less.

7. A standard library file is a file that defines commonly used objects, such as cout.

8. The purpose of an include directive is to tell the program to include a particular standard library file in your application.

9. A preprocessor is a program that scans the source code for include directives, and then inserts them into the source code of all files included by the include directives.

10. The compiler is a program that translates the preprocessed source code (the source code after the insertions made by the preprocessor) into corresponding machine language instructions that are stored in an object file.

11. The linker is a program that combines the object file with the necessary parts of the run-time library and creates an executable file.