This article needs additional citations for verification. (March 2024) |
C++ (/ˈsiː plʌs plʌs/, pronounced "C plus plus" and sometimes abbreviated as CPP) is a high-level, general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup. First released in 1985 as an extension of the C programming language, it has since expanded significantly over time; as of 1997[update], C++ has object-oriented, generic, and functional features, in addition to facilities for low-level memory manipulation for making things like microcomputers or to make operating systems like Linux or Windows. 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.
 Logo endorsed by the C++ standards committee | |
| Paradigms | Multi-paradigm: procedural, imperative, functional, object-oriented, generic, modular |
|---|---|
| Family | C |
| Designed by | Bjarne Stroustrup |
| Developer | ISO/IEC JTC 1 (Joint Technical Committee 1) / SC 22 (Subcommittee 22) / WG 21 (Working Group 21) |
| First appeared | 1985 |
| Stable release | C++20 (ISO/IEC 14882:2020)
/ 15 December 2020 |
| Preview release | C++23
/ 19 March 2023 |
| Typing discipline | Static, strong, nominative, partially inferred |
| OS | Cross-platform |
| Filename extensions | .C, .cc, .cpp, .cxx, .c++, .h, .H, .hh, .hpp, .hxx, .h++ .cppm, .ixx, |
| Website | isocpp |
| Major implementations | |
| GCC, LLVM Clang, Microsoft Visual C++, Embarcadero C++Builder, Intel C++ Compiler, IBM XL C++, EDG | |
| Influenced by | |
| Ada, ALGOL 68,BCPL,C, CLU,F#,ML, Mesa,Modula-2,Simula, Smalltalk | |
| Influenced | |
| Ada 95, C#,C99, Carbon, Chapel,Clojure,D, Java,JS++,Lua,Nim,Objective-C++, Perl, PHP, Python,Rust,Seed7 | |
| |
C++ was designed with systems programming and embedded, resource-constrained software and large systems in mind, with performance, efficiency, and flexibility of use as its design highlights. C++ has also been found useful in many other contexts, with key strengths being software infrastructure and resource-constrained applications, including desktop applications, video games, servers (e.g., e-commerce, web search, or databases), and performance-critical applications (e.g., telephone switches or space probes).
C++ is standardized by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), with the latest standard version ratified and published by ISO in December 2020 as ISO/IEC 14882:2020 (informally known as C++20). The C++ programming language was initially standardized in 1998 as ISO/IEC 14882:1998, which was then amended by the C++03, C++11, C++14, and C++17 standards. The current C++20 standard supersedes these with new features and an enlarged standard library. Before the initial standardization in 1998, C++ was developed by Stroustrup at Bell Labs since 1979 as an extension of the C language; he wanted an efficient and flexible language similar to C that also provided high-level features for program organization. Since 2012, C++ has been on a three-year release schedule with C++23 as the next planned standard.