Sams Teach Yourself C++ in One Hour a Day, Seventh Edition

Lesson 14. An Introduction to Macros and Templates

By now, you should have a solid understanding of basic C++ syntax. Programs written in C++ should be understandable and you are poised to learn language features that help you write applications efficiently.

In this lesson, you learn

• An introduction to the preprocessor

• The #define keyword and macros

• An introduction to templates

• How to write templates functions and classes

• The difference between macros and templates

• How C++11 helps program compile time checks using static_assert

The Preprocessor and the Compiler

In Lesson 2, “The Anatomy of a C++ Program,” first learned about the preprocessor. The preprocessor, as the name indicates, is what runs before the compiler starts. In other ...