or is not valid C++ : why does this code compile?

Question

Here is a very simple C++ application I made with QtCreator :

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    int a = 1;
    int b = 2;

    if (a < 1 or b > 3)         


        

Answer 1

According to Wikipedia:

C++ defines keywords to act as aliases for a number of symbols that function as operators: and (&&), bitand (&), and_eq (&=), or (||), bitor (|), or_eq (|=), xor (^), xor_eq (^=), not (!), not_eq (!=), compl (~).

As MadKeithV points out, these replacements came from C's iso646.h, and were included in ISO C++ as operator keywords. The Wikipedia article for iso646.h says that the reason for these keywords was indeed for international and other non-QWERTY keyboards that might not have had easy access to the symbols.