Jeff Cogswell

Every time you start a new application, you create one or more processes. A process is simply executable code that is loaded into memory. The CPU reads and executes the instructions to perform the tasks you ask the application to do. When the CPU loads your application into memory, it assigns each process the application creates a Process IDentifier (PID), which is pronounced pid (think of lid with a p instead of an l).

Creating a library project in C++ is only a little different than creating a console application. The following steps describe how to create a library project:Choose File→New→Project.You see the New From Template dialog box shown. Highlight the Static Library icon on the Projects tab, then click Go.You see the Welcome page of the Static Library wizard.

The static library starts with a standard C file. To make this library work well with templates, you need to delete the C file, add a C++ file, and add a header file. The following steps describe how to perform this process:Right-click main.c in the Projects tab of the Management window and choose Remove File From Project from the context menu that appears.

Most of the Boost library works just fine by adding headers to your application code. However, a few components, such as RegEx, require a library. Before you can use a library, you must build it. After you build the library, you must add it to your application.There are two techniques for adding the required headers and libraries to an application.

Click here to download the code example files for C++ All-in-One For Dummies, 3rd Edition. These files contain all the sample code from the book. Use them to work through all the C++ sample applications describe in our book. During the writing of this book, a few of our beta readers reported some odd behavior from their anti-virus programs.

In a typical C++ application, the main() function receives an array and a count as command line parameters — parameters provided as part of the command to execute that application at the command line. However, to beginning programmers, the parameters can look intimidating. But they’re not: Think of the two parameters as an array of strings and a size of the array.

The ANSI C++ standard document gives a complete library of classes that handle streams and general input/output. Fortunately, most of the classes in the Standard Library are available with almost all the compilers currently available. Getting the right header file The streams library includes several classes that make your life much easier.

When you open a file, all kinds of things can go wrong. A file lives on a physical device — a fixed disk, for example, or perhaps on a flash drive or SD card — and you can run into problems when working with physical devices. For example, part of the disk might be damaged, causing an existing file to become corrupted.

Even though you can currently create User-Defined Literals (UDLs) for some basic types, there are many situations where developers need UDLs for classes as well. In some cases, these classes are part of the Standard Library. There are now consistent and standardized UDLs attached to some classes. Following are some of the more important classes and how to use them.