C Primer Plus®, Third Edition

The Explanation

We'll take two passes through the program's source code. The first pass highlights the meaning of each line, and the second explores specific implications and details. Figure 2.1 summarizes the parts of a C program.

Pass 1 Quick Synopsis

#include <stdio.h>    include another file

This line tells the compiler to include information found in the file stdio.h, which is a standard part of all C compiler packages.

int main(void)        a function name

C programs consist of one or more functions, the basic modules of a C program. This program consists of one function called main. The parentheses identify main() as a function name. The int indicates that the main() function returns an integer, and the void indicates that main() doesn't take ...