Sams Teach Yourself C++ in One Hour a Day, 9th Edition

Lesson 14

An Introduction to Macros and Templates

By now, you should have a solid understanding of basic C++ syntax. You are poised to learn language features that help you program C++ ­applications efficiently.

In this lesson, you learn

• ■   An introduction to the preprocessor

• ■   The #define keyword and macros

• ■   An introduction to templates

• ■   How to write template functions and classes

• ■   The difference between macros and templates

• ■   How to use static_assert to perform compile-time checks

The Preprocessor and the Compiler

Lesson 2, “The Anatomy of a C++ Program,” introduced the preprocessor. The preprocessor, as the name indicates, runs before the compiler does. In other words, you use the preprocessor to influence what is compiled ...