Question

What does this do: char(nextChar). I have no variable named char. Am I calling the char class constructor here or something?

int nextChar;
while ((nextChar == stream.get()) != EOF)
{
    // Convert it to a string for lookup in the symbol table
    string foundChar = "";
    foundChar += char(nextChar);

}

Answer 1

It appends char(nextChar) to the std::string foundChar using the overloaded std::string::operator += (char) and then discards the string.

char(nextChar) is a cast from int to char (since nextChar is declared as int) – equivalent to (char)nextChar.