Understanding delimiters

Delimiters are characters used to separate smaller parts of the program from one another. These smaller parts are called tokens. A token is the smallest complete C language element. A token is either a single character or a sequence of characters predefined by the C language, such as int or return, or a sequence of characters/words defined by us, which we will learn about later. When a token is predefined by C, it cannot be used except in a prescribed way. These tokens are called keywords. Four keywords we have already encountered are include, int, main, and return. We will encounter many others throughout the course of this chapter.

Again, here is the Hello, world! program for reference:

#include<stdio.h>
int main()  {
 printf( "Hello, world!\n" );
 return 0;
}

There are three types of delimiters that we will explore here:

• Single delimiters: ; and <space>
• Paired, symmetric delimiters...