L

Letter class; see manager/worker idiom.

A library (or library module) contains the object code generated from several implementation files, in a form that the linker can search when it needs to find general-purpose functions.

A library designer is a programmer who creates classes for application programmers to use in writing application programs.

The linker is a program that combines information from all of the object files for our program, along with some previously prepared files called libraries, to produce an executable program.

Linking is the process of creating an executable program from object files and libraries.

A literal value is a value that doesn't have a name, but instead represents itself in a literal manner. Some examples are 'x' (a char literal having the ASCII value that represents the letter “x”) and 5 (a numeric literal with the value 5).

Local scope describes the visibility of variables defined within a function; such variables can be accessed only by code in that function.^[3]

^[3] In fact, a variable can be declared in any block, not just in a function. In that case, its scope is from the point where it is declared until the end of the block where it is defined.

A local variable is a variable that has local scope.

A logical expression is an expression that takes on the value true or false rather than a numeric value. Some examples of such an expression are x > y (which will be true if x has a greater value than y and false otherwise) and a == b (which will be true if a has the same value as b, and false otherwise). Also see bool.

A long is a type of integer variable that can represent a whole number. With most current C++ compilers, including the one on the CD in the back of the book, a long occupies 4 bytes of storage and therefore can represent a number in either the range -2147483648 to 2147483647 (if signed) or the range 0 to 4294967295 (if unsigned).

A loop is a means of executing a controlled block a variable number of times depending on some condition. The statement that controls the controlled block is called a loop control statement. This book covers the while and for loop control statements. See while and for for details.

A loop control statement is a statement that controls the controlled block in a loop.