cpp/language/basic concepts

This section provides definitions for the specific terminology and the concepts used when describing the C++ programming language.

A C++ program is a sequence of text files (typically header and source files) that contain. They undergo to become an executable program, which is executed when the C++ implementation calls its.

Certain words in a C++ program have special meaning, and these are known as keywords. Others can be used as. Comments are ignored during translation. C++ programs also contain, the values of characters inside them are determined by. Certain characters in the program have to be represented with.

The entities of a C++ program are values,, s, , , s, class members, , s, and s. Preprocessor macros are not C++ entities.

 may introduce entities, associate them with s and define their properties. The declarations that define all properties required to use an entity are s. A program must contain only one definition of any non-inline function or variable that is.

Definitions of functions usually include sequences of, some of which include , which specify the computations to be performed by the program.

Names encountered in a program are associated with the declarations that introduced them using. Each name is only valid within a part of the program called its. Some names have which makes them refer to the same entities when they appear in different scopes or translation units.

Each object, reference, function, expression in C++ is associated with a, which may be , compound, or , complete or , etc.

Declared objects and declared references that are not are variables.