This book provides a complete language reference for the expert C++ user. It consists of the C++ reference manual plus annotations and commentary sections.

The C++ reference manual alone provides a complete definition of C++, but the terse reference manual style leaves many reasonable questions unanswered. Discussions of what is not in the language, why certain features are defined as they are, and how one might implement some particular feature have no place in a reference manual but are nevertheless of interest to most users. Such discussions are presented as annotations and in the commentary sections.

The commentary also helps the reader appreciate the relationships among different parts of the language and emphasizes points and implications that might have been overlooked in the reference manual itself. Examples and comparisons with C also make this book more approachable than the bare reference manual.

This book does not provide information about standard libraries beyond discussion of the library functions providing the most basic run-time support nor does it discuss C++ programming styles or techniques. Furthermore, this book does not attempt to teach C++ programming; it explains what the language is--not how to use it.

The index and the cross references embedded in the commentary and in the reference manual itself are important and integral parts of the book.

We hope that this reference manual will provide a firm base for further evolution of C++. It has been chosen by ANSI to serve as a starting point for the formal standardization of C++.