Question

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What does the word “literal” mean?

Often when reading literature about C++, I encounter the word “literal”. It is a bit unclear to me what exactly this term means in C++.

Answer 1

A literal is some data that’s presented directly in the code, rather than indirectly through a variable or function call.

Here are some examples, one per line:

42
128
3.1415
'a'
"hello world"

The data constituting a literal cannot be modified by a program, but it may be copied into a variable for further use:

int a = 42;  // creates variable `a` with the same value as the literal `42`

This concept is by no means unique to C++.

The term “literal” comes from the fact that you’ve written data literally into your program, i.e. exactly as written, not “hidden” behind a variable name.