Question

I just started learning C++ and I wrote this sample program from the text and when I compile and run it, it just closes after the user inputs any number and presses enter. I’m guessing the answer to this is very obvious so forgive me as newbie here….it’s really my first C++ program 😛

#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

int main ()
{
  int numberOfLanguages;
  cout << "Hello Reader.\n"
       << "Welcome to C++.\n"

  cout << "How many programming languages have you used? ";
  cin  >> numberOfLanguages;

  if(numberOfLanguages < 1)
      cout << "Read the preface.  You may prefer.\n"
           << "a more elementary book by the same author.\n";
  else
      cout << "Enjoy the book.\n";

  return 0;
}

Answer 1

Imagine you were designing a model for application execution. You have two choices:

A) When the end of a program is reached it shall terminate.

B) When the end of a program is reached the program shall remain alive in some strange limbo state. It will still retain system resources and will not actually be doing anything, but in order to close the user must terminate it explicitly.

I think anyone would go for option A here, and that is what you are seeing. The end of main is reached and your program exits.

If you would like it to pause at the end take some input from the user, i.e.,

char c;
std::cin >> c;
return 0;