To the best of my knowledge, the C++ standard knows no difference between header files and source files. As far as the language is concerned, any text file with legal code is the same as any other. However, although not illegal, including source files into your program will pretty much eliminate any advantages you would’ve … Read more
Historically, the first extensions used for C++ were .c and .h, exactly like for C. This caused practical problems, especially the .c which didn’t allow build systems to easily differentiate C++ and C files. Unix, on which C++ has been developed, has case sensitive file systems. So some used .C for C++ files. Other used … Read more
C++ compilation A compilation in C++ is done in 2 major phases: The first is the compilation of “source” text files into binary “object” files: The CPP file is the compiled file and is compiled without any knowledge about the other CPP files (or even libraries), unless fed to it through raw declaration or header … Read more
What differs is the locations in which the preprocessor searches for the file to be included. #include <filename> The preprocessor searches in an implementation-defined manner, normally in directories pre-designated by the compiler/IDE. This method is normally used to include header files for the C standard library and other header files associated with the target … Read more