{"id":51596,"date":"2026-03-01T20:57:44","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T20:57:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/?p=51596"},"modified":"2026-03-01T20:57:46","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T20:57:46","slug":"c-programming-include-directive-quotes-or-angle-brackets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/c-programming-include-directive-quotes-or-angle-brackets\/","title":{"rendered":"C programming: include directive: quotes or angle brackets?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2>Self-tutoring about c programming: the tutor mentions quotes versus angle brackets for header files.<\/h2>\n<p>\nThe following is according to my understanding.<\/p>\n<p>\nIn c programming, one might need to include one or more header files that define functions, constants, etc. They are included, for example, using #include &#8220;a_header.h&#8221; or with #include &lt;some_standard_header.h&gt;.<\/p>\n<p>\nWhy, in some cases, is the header enclosed in quotes, while in others, in angle brackets? The quotes indicate the header file will be included in a given directory (the current one, perhaps), while the angle brackets indicate a library that&#8217;s already defined and standard in the c language. The compiler, typically, will know where to find such a file within the c installation.<\/p>\n<p>\nSource:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/learn.microsoft.com\/en-us\/cpp\/cpp\/header-files-cpp?view=msvc-170\">learn.microsoft.com: Header files (C++)<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/en.cppreference.com\/w\/c\/header.html\">cppreference.com: C Standard Library headers<\/a><\/p>\nJack of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\">Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane,<\/a> Campbell River, BC.\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Self-tutoring about c programming: the tutor mentions quotes versus angle brackets for header files. The following is according to my understanding. In c programming, one might need to include one or more header files that define functions, constants, etc. They &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/c-programming-include-directive-quotes-or-angle-brackets\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">C programming: include directive: quotes or angle brackets?<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2995],"tags":[4101,4102,4100],"class_list":["post-51596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c-programming","tag-angle-brackets","tag-header-files","tag-include-directive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51596"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51601,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51596\/revisions\/51601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}