"Header file" is a file which contains prototypes or declarations of certain required functions or macros or variables. Functions -those declared in header files- has a benefit that those can be reused,recalled. Because of "Header file concept", programming became easy; otherwise in past, programmer need to write whole code for each function or macro or variables or concepts, each time !!!!!
For example, in C compiler-GCC, prototype of printf(), scanf() functions is declared(written) in stdio.h file. But in FORTRAN language, because of absence of "header files", programmer wrote complete coding of scanning, printing, exiting and all processes -each time.
The C Pre-Processor links those functions to their header files and replaces those functions with their complete prototype. Header files need to included at the starting of C code.
All header files are located in "/usr/include" directory
GCC contain all ANSI approved header files only. But most of other compilers, create and put their own header files. You can include or install other .h files in GCC. All header files in GCC and Borland TC are given below. Hope they will help you !!!
STANDARD
OR GCC
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BORLAND
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assert.h
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alloc.h
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complex.h
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bios.h
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ctype.h
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conio.h
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errno.h
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dir.h
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fenv.h
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dirent.h
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float.h
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dos.h
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inttypes.h
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fnkeys.h
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iso646.h
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graphics.h
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limits.h
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generic.h
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locale.h
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io.h
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math.h
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process.h
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setjmp.h
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share.h
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signal.h
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sys\stat.h
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stdarg.h
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TurboC.h
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stdbool.h
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stddef.h
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stdint.h
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stdio.h
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stdlib.h
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string.h
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tgmath.h
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time.h
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wchar.h
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wctype.h
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