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1.1 — Structure of a program

By Alex, on May 30th, 2007

A computer program is a sequence of instructions that tell the computer what to do.

Statements and expressions

The most common type of instruction in a program is the statement. A statement in C++ is the smallest independent unit in the language. In human language, it is analogous to a sentence. We write sentences in order to convey an idea. In C++, we write statements in order to convey to the compiler that we want to perform a task. Statements in C++ are terminated by a semicolon.

There are many different kinds of statements in C++. The following are some of the most common types of simple statements:

int x;
x = 5;
cout << x;

int x is a declaration statement. It tells the compiler that x is a variable. All variables in a program must be declared before they are used. We will talk more about variables shortly.
x = 5 is an assignment statement. It assigns a value (5) to a variable (x).
cout << x; is an output statement. It outputs the value of x (which we set to 5 in the previous statement) to the screen.

The compiler is also capable of resolving expressions. An expression is an mathematical entity that evaluates to a value. For example, in math, the expression 2+3 evaluates to the value 5. Expressions can involve values (such as 2), variables (such as x), operators (such as +) and functions (which return an output value based on some input value). They can be singular (such as 2, or x), or compound (such as 2+3, 2+x, x+y, or (2+x)*(y-3)).

For example, the statement x = 2 + 3; is a valid assignment statement. The expression 2+3 evaluates to the value of 5. This value of 5 is then assigned to x.

Functions

In C++, statements are typically grouped into units called functions. A function is a collection of statements that executes sequentially. Every C++ program must contain a special function called main(). When the C++ program is run, execution starts with the first statement inside of main(). Functions are typically written to do a very specific job. For example, a function named Max() might contain statements that figures out which of two numbers is larger. A function named CalculateGrade() might calculate a student’s grade. We will talk more about functions later.

Libraries

Libraries are groups of functions that have been “packaged up” for reuse in many different programs. The core C++ language is actually very small and minimalistic — however, C++ comes with a bunch of libraries, known as the C++ standard libraries, that provide programmers with lots of extra functionality. For example, the iostream library contains functions for doing input and output. During the link stage of the compilation process, the libraries from the C++ standard library are the runtime support libraries that are linked into the program (this will be discussed further in lesson 1.4).

Taking a look at a sample program

Now that you have a brief understanding of what statements, functions, and libraries are, let’s look at a simple hello world program.

Consider our hello world program:

#include <iostream>

int main()
{
   using namespace std;
   cout << "Hello world!" << endl;
   return 0;
}

Line 1 is a special type of statement called a preprocessor directive. Preprocessor directives tell the compiler to perform a special task. In this case, we are telling the compiler that we would like to use the iostream library. The iostream library contains code that tells the compiler what cout and endl do. In other words, we need to include the iostream library in order to write to the screen.

Line 3 declares the main() function, which as you learned above, is mandatory. Every program must have a main() function.

Lines 4 and 8 tell the compiler which lines are part of the main function. Everything between the opening curly brace on line 4 and the closing curly brace on line 8 is considered part of the main() function.

Line 5 is our first statement (you can tell it’s a statement because it ends with a semicolon). As you learned in the explanation for line 1, cout and endl live inside the iostream library. However, within iostream, they live inside a special compartment named std (short for standard). This using statement tells the compiler to look inside a compartment named std if it can’t find cout or endl defined anywhere else. In other words, this statement is also necessary so the compiler can find cout and endl, which we use on line 6.

Line 6 is our output statement. Cout is a special object that represents the console/screen. The << symbol is an operator (much like + is an operator) called the output operator. Cout understands that anything sent to it via the << operator should be printed on the screen. Endl is a special symbol that moves the cursor to the next line.

Line 7 is a new type of statement, called a return statement. When an executable program finishes running, it sends a value to the operating system that indicates whether it was run successfully or not. The return value of main() is used for this purpose. This particular return statement returns the value of 0 to the operating system, which means “everything went okay!”. Non-zero numbers are typically used to indicate that something went wrong, and the program had to abort. We will discuss return statements in more detail when we discuss functions.

Conclusion

All of the programs we write will follow this template, or a variation on it. We will discuss each of the lines above in more detail in the upcoming sections.

Quiz

The following quiz is meant to reinforce your understanding of the material presented above.

1) What is the difference between a statement and an expression?
2) What is the difference between a function and a library?
3) What symbol do statements in C++ end with?

Quiz Answers

To see these answers, select the area below with your mouse.

1) Show Solution

2) Show Solution

3) Show Solution

1.2 — Comments
Index
0.7 — A few common C++ problems
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