Line 8
std::cout << "Welcome to C++! "; // display message
instructs the computer to perform an action—namely, to print the characters contained between the double quotation marks. Together, the quotation marks and the characters between them are called a string, a character string or a string literal. In this book, we refer to characters between double quotation marks simply as strings. Whitespace characters in strings are not ignored by the compiler.
The entire line 8, including std::cout
, the << operator, the string "Welcome to C++!
"
and the semicolon (;), is called a statement. Most C++ statements end with a semicolon, also known as the statement terminator (we’ll see some exceptions to this soon). Preprocessing directives (like #include
) do not end with a semicolon. Typically, output and input in C++ are accomplished with streams of characters. Thus, when the preceding statement is executed, it sends the stream of characters Welcome to C++!
to the standard output stream object—std::cout—which is normally “connected” to the screen.
Good Programming Practice 2.1
Indent the body of each function one level within the braces that delimit the function’s body. This makes a program’s functional structure stand out and makes the program easier to read.
Good Programming Practice 2.2
Set a convention for the size of indent you prefer, then apply it uniformly. The tab key may be used to create indents, but tab stops may vary. We prefer three spaces per level of indent.