Java and C++ are two prominent object-oriented programming languages. By many language popularity metrics, the two languages have dominated object-oriented and high-performance software development for much of the 21st century, and are often directly compared and contrasted. Java appeared about 10 years later and its syntax was based on C/C++.
C++ is a general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significantly over time, and modern C++ now has object-oriented, generic, and functional features in addition to facilities for low-level memory manipulation. It is almost always implemented as a compiled language, and many vendors provide C++ compilers, including the Free Software Foundation, LLVM, Microsoft, Intel, Embarcadero, Oracle, and IBM, so it is available on many platforms.
Generic programming is a style of computer programming in which algorithms are written in terms of types to-be-specified-later that are then instantiated when needed for specific types provided as parameters. This approach, pioneered by the ML programming language in 1973, permits writing common functions or types that differ only in the set of types on which they operate when used, thus reducing duplication. Such software entities are known as generics in Ada, C#, Delphi, Eiffel, F#, Java, Nim, Python, Go, Rust, Swift, TypeScript and Visual Basic .NET. They are known as parametric polymorphism in ML, Scala, Julia, and Haskell ; templates in C++ and D; and parameterized types in the influential 1994 book Design Patterns.
In computing, inline expansion, or inlining, is a manual or compiler optimization that replaces a function call site with the body of the called function. Inline expansion is similar to macro expansion, but occurs during compilation, without changing the source code, while macro expansion occurs prior to compilation, and results in different text that is then processed by the compiler.
The C standard library or libc is the standard library for the C programming language, as specified in the ISO C standard. Starting from the original ANSI C standard, it was developed at the same time as the C library POSIX specification, which is a superset of it. Since ANSI C was adopted by the International Organization for Standardization, the C standard library is also called the ISO C library.
In the C and C++ programming languages, an inline function is one qualified with the keyword inline; this serves two purposes:
- It serves as a compiler directive that suggests that the compiler substitute the body of the function inline by performing inline expansion, i.e. by inserting the function code at the address of each function call, thereby saving the overhead of a function call. In this respect it is analogous to the
register storage class specifier, which similarly provides an optimization hint. - The second purpose of
inline is to change linkage behavior; the details of this are complicated. This is necessary due to the C/C++ separate compilation + linkage model, specifically because the definition (body) of the function must be duplicated in all translation units where it is used, to allow inlining during compiling, which, if the function has external linkage, causes a collision during linking. C and C++ resolve this in different ways.
The One Definition Rule (ODR) is an important rule of the C++ programming language that prescribes that classes/structs and non-inline functions cannot have more than one definition in the entire program and template and types cannot have more than one definition by translation unit. It is defined in the ISO C++ Standard 2003, at section 3.2.
In computer programming, a forward declaration is a declaration of an identifier for which the programmer has not yet given a complete definition.
In computer programming, a precompiled header (PCH) is a header file that is compiled into an intermediate form that is faster to process for the compiler. Usage of precompiled headers may significantly reduce compilation time, especially when applied to large header files, header files that include many other header files, or header files that are included in many translation units.
Platform Invocation Services, commonly referred to as P/Invoke, is a feature of Common Language Infrastructure implementations, like Microsoft's Common Language Runtime, that enables managed code to call native code.
In computer programming, a declaration is a language construct specifying identifier properties: it declares a word's (identifier's) meaning. Declarations are most commonly used for functions, variables, constants, and classes, but can also be used for other entities such as enumerations and type definitions. Beyond the name and the kind of entity, declarations typically specify the data type, or the type signature ; types may also include dimensions, such as for arrays. A declaration is used to announce the existence of the entity to the compiler; this is important in those strongly typed languages that require functions, variables, and constants, and their types to be specified with a declaration before use, and is used in forward declaration. The term "declaration" is frequently contrasted with the term "definition", but meaning and usage varies significantly between languages; see below.
The C and C++ programming languages are closely related but have many significant differences. C++ began as a fork of an early, pre-standardized C, and was designed to be mostly source-and-link compatible with C compilers of the time. Due to this, development tools for the two languages are often integrated into a single product, with the programmer able to specify C or C++ as their source language.
Haxe is an open source high-level cross-platform programming language and compiler that can produce applications and source code, for many different computing platforms from one code-base. It is free and open-source software, released under the MIT License. The compiler, written in OCaml, is released under the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2.
This comparison of programming languages compares the features of language syntax (format) for over 50 computer programming languages.
The Windows software trace preprocessor is a preprocessor that simplifies the use of WMI event tracing to implement efficient software tracing in drivers and applications that target Windows 2000 and later operating systems. WPP was created by Microsoft and is included in the Windows DDK. Although WPP is wide in its applicability, it is not included in the Windows SDK, and therefore is primarily used for drivers and driver support software produced by software vendors that purchase the Windows DDK.
Single compilation unit (SCU) is a computer programming technique for the C and C++ languages, which reduces compilation time for programs spanning multiple files. Specifically, it allows the compiler to keep data from shared header files, definitions and templates, so that it need not recreate them for each file. It is an instance of program optimization. The technique can be applied to an entire program or to some subset of source files; when applied to an entire program, it is also known as a unity build.
This comparison of programming languages compares how object-oriented programming languages such as C++, Java, Smalltalk, Object Pascal, Perl, Python, and others manipulate data structures.
In C and C++ programming language terminology, a translation unit is the ultimate input to a C or C++ compiler from which an object file is generated. A translation unit roughly consists of a source file after it has been processed by the C preprocessor, meaning that header files listed in #include directives are literally included, sections of code within #ifndef may be included, and macros have been expanded.
Many programming languages and other computer files have a directive, often called include, that causes the contents of the specified file to be inserted into the original file. These included files are called copybooks or header files. There are over 1000+ C library files and they are often used to define the physical layout of program data, pieces of procedural code, and/or forward declarations while promoting encapsulation and the reuse of code or data.
Although C++ is one of the most widespread programming languages, many prominent software engineers criticize C++ for being overly complex and fundamentally flawed. Among the critics have been: Robert Pike, Joshua Bloch, Linus Torvalds, Donald Knuth, Richard Stallman, and Ken Thompson. C++ was widely adopted and implemented as a systems language through most of its existence, it has been used to build many pieces of very important software.
