C++ Primer Plus

C++ Output with cout

Now let’s look at how to display a message. The myfirst.cpp program uses the following C++ statement:

cout << "Come up and C++ me some time.";

The part enclosed within the double quotation marks is the message to print. In C++, any series of characters enclosed in double quotation marks is called a character string, presumably because it consists of several characters strung together into a larger unit. The << notation indicates that the statement is sending the string to cout; the symbols point the way the information flows. And what is cout? It’s a predefined object that knows how to display a variety of things, including strings, numbers, and individual characters. (An object, as you might remember from Chapter 1, is a ...