How to create your own Header Files in C/C++?Written By Neeraj Mishra on Sunday, June 2, 2013 | 6:15 AM

In this article I am going to tell you the easiest way to create your own header files in

programming languages like C and C++. For this you do not have to be an expert.

This can be done by anyone who has just started learning programming languages.

Ok! Before starting the process let me tell you the thing that why we need to create

our own header files.

Why we need to create our own header files?

When we are working on big projects, we create many functions to perform particular

task. But this makes the source code very long. So to solve this kind of problem we

create a header file with all those function and include this header file in our

program. This makes the program shorter, effective and easy to understand. Now I

am sure that you understand the purpose of creating our own header files.

Also Read: How to Write and Run C/C++ Programs in Ubuntu (Linux)

Simple way to create your own header files in C/C++

1. Open notepad and write the function that you want to use in your program. An

example is shown below.

int sum(int a,int b)

{

                return(a+b);

}

2. Now save the notepad file with .h extension. Like in above example we are

creating a function forsum, so save this file with

name sum.h in INCLUDE or BIN folder (you can use any other name).

3. After that write a program that uses this sum function and include the header file

that you have just created. I have written the program below to make it easy to

understand.

#include<stdio.h>

#include<conio.h>

#include<sum.h>                             //header file created by you

void main()

{

                int a,b,s;

                clrscr();

                printf("Enter the value of a and b:");

                scanf("%d%d",&a,&b);

                s=sum(a,b);

                printf("Sum=%d",s);

                getch();

}

Also Read: Complete guide to run any program from this blog

4. In this way you can add more functions to your header file.

Note: Do not use long header file name (about 7 to 8 characters), otherwise you will

get an error. Write only the function definition in the header file, there is no need to

write function prototype.

If you have any kind of problem regarding the whole process than feel free to ask by

commenting below.