What are literals in C++?

A literal is any notation for representing a value within the source code. They just exist in your source code and do not have any reference a value in memory. Contrast this with identifiers, which refer to a value in memory.

There are several types of literals in C++. Some of the examples of literals are −

• "Hello" (a string)
• 3.141 (a float/double)
• true (a boolean)
• 3 (an integer)
• 'c' (a character)

Things that are not literals −

• bar = 0; (a statement)
• 3*5-4 (an expression)
• std::cin (an identifier)