I''ve been programming for a while from slightly older books, and all of them use the .h header postfix when using includes. I have not run into any problems relating to this issue that I know of. What is the difference between using no postfix to using .h? (ex. #include <iostream> / #include <iostream.h>. Also, can I drop the .h on all header files, such as or ? And would it require another namespace for any non-standard C++ header files? A lot of questions, but I want to change my code without having any significant errors.

The extension is required for most headers, but it is incorrect to add an extension to the name of a standard C++ header. Some of standard headers are: utility, list, vector, deque, queue, stack, map, set, bitset, functional, algorithm, string, exception, stdexcept, iostream, fstream, locale, sstream, limits and typeinfo.

<x.h> and <x> are two different files. They may or may not have equivalent content. For example:


In this example, &ltcstdlib> just includes the old header in std namespace. If you take iostreams, however, then <xstream.h> and <xstream> provide two completely different implementations. Certain headers exist only in <header> version, such as &ltvector>, and others exist only in <header.h> versions, such as <windows.h>.

quote: Original post by Sethius
I''ve been programming for a while from slightly older books, and all of them use the .h header postfix when using includes. I have not run into any problems relating to this issue that I know of. What is the difference between using no postfix to using .h? (ex. #include <iostream> / #include <iostream.h>. Also, can I drop the .h on all header files, such as <windows.h> or <ddraw.h>? And would it require another namespace for any non-standard C++ header files? A lot of questions, but I want to change my code without having any significant errors.

My experiance has been it depends on the compiler. I''ve used a few compilers that it didn''t matter and others that required it.

quote: Original post by IndirectX
&lt

You must end it with a semicolon, &lt;, or it won''t work in most browsers.

Thanks for the help.

Dont know if you guys noticed... But if you use its takes up less room intstead of . Just checking.



Stick

Just FYI:

If you use #include <iostream.h> in VC .NET, it''ll scream at you that "old iostreams are depricated" and VC 8 will not support them.

IMHO, if there''s an extensionless version of the header, use it. My $0.02.

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i support your choice of trying to get into the present by learning the standard.

just like dude said above me, soon the old stuff will be phased out.