Question

Preprocessor directives are carried out:

just before a program is loaded into the processor.
just before a program is executed by the central processing unit (CPU).
just before a program is processed by the compiler.
just before the program's output is processed.

Answer 1

Preprocessor directives are processed by the compiler before it starts compiling the source code into machine code. These directives are used for tasks such as including files and defining constants.

Step-by-step explanation:

Preprocessor directives are part of the compilation process in programming languages such as C and C++. These directives give instructions to the compiler before the actual compilation of the code starts. The correct answer is that preprocessor directives are carried out just before a program is processed by the compiler. This means that before the compiler converts the source code into machine code, it first processes these directives. Directives are used for various tasks such as including other files, defining constants, and conditional compilation.