Is 'bool' a basic datatype in C++?

Solution 1:

bool is a fundamental datatype in C++. Converting true to an integer type will yield 1, and converting false will yield 0 (4.5/4 and 4.7/4). In C, until C99, there was no bool datatype, and people did stuff like

enum bool {
    false, true
};

So did the Windows API. Starting with C99, we have _Bool as a basic data type. Including stdbool.h will typedef #define that to bool and provide the constants true and false. They didn't make bool a basic data-type (and thus a keyword) because of compatibility issues with existing code.

Solution 2:

Yes, bool is a built-in type.

WIN32 is C code, not C++, and C does not have a bool, so they provide their own typedef BOOL.

Solution 3:

C++ does lots of automatic casting for you - that is, if you have a variable of type bool and pass it to something expecting an int, it will make it into an int for you - 0 for false and 1 for true.

I don't have my standard around to see if this is guaranteed, but every compiler I've used does this (so one can assume it will always work).

However, relying on this conversion is a bad idea. Code can stop compiling if a new method is added that overloads the int signature, etc.

Solution 4:

yes, it was introduced in 1993.

for further reference: Boolean Datatype