Thread: Includes... which one? How does one decide?

I've been reading a lot of the tutorials/comments from this site. How does one know which include file to use?

1. One takes a look in his/her textbook and looks up which header file is required for a certain function.
2. One consults a online reference like http://www.f.kth.se/~f95-pax/refs/C%20Library%20Ref/ to find out which header file is required.
3. One asks, for example on boards like these, which header file is required.
4. Experience.

Microsofts MSDN is available online, thought the URL was msdn.microsoft.com.

There is no master list of header files that can be included in a program. Down the road you will be creating your own custom files tailored for a given class, function, task, whatever.

There ARE some standard files, like iostream, stdio, stdlib, time, math, iomanip, ctype, etc. that all compilers are like to have. There are some newer standard files like vector, queue, set, map, associated with the standard template library that the newest, up to date, state of the art compilers should have (these compilers tend to have all the old standard files as well but they are frequently renamed). Then there are some common, but non-standard files, the one that comes to mind being conio.

What's in each of the files can be learned as previously suggested. If you aren't intimindated you can look at the function and class declarations contained in the files by opening them in your compiler or a text viewer-----just DON'T change anything you find there! I don't suggest doing this until you have a little more experience under your belt, but later on you'll be able to explore without the help files pretty well.

Good luck!

>Unlike VB where I have an entire drive full of links, tutorials,
>source code... and tons of books.

There are free books on C++, like the one of Bruce Eckel his Thinking in C++. Which can be downloaded from:

http://www.codecuts.com/mainpage.asp?WebPageID=315

A very good, is ofcourse Bjarne Stroustrup his The C++ Programming Language. And there are more.

>I guess I'm a little impatient.

Well, then remember:

Open the .h file you think you need to include, and see what the functions inside do.

Usually the functions themselves are not implemented in the header files, but they are stored into libraries. You use the header-files to make the functions, and some other things like constants, known in your program.

I know the functions are not implemented in the .h file. But you can ususally tell what they do by their name and parameters

That is correct. But to know the behaviour of the function it is not enough. Example, if it returns an integer, what does that integer tell? And what about restrictions on input parameters? For this you would need a reference in which the functions are described.

http://www.cplusplus.com/
I use c++.com it is a nice reference site.
There is also google. Searching for a function will usually turn up alot of information.