Examining the Compilation Process. Part 1. Oct 8, 2008, 15 :01 UTC (0 Talkback[s]) (3109 reads) (Other stories by Mike Diehl)
"As mentioned earlier, the first step that the compiler does is it sends our source code through the C Preprocessor. The C Preprocessor is responsible for 3 tasks: text substitution, stripping comments, and file inclusion. Text substitution and file inclusion is requested in our source code using preprocessor directives. The lines in our code that begin with the “#” character are preprocessor directives."
