What a jolly good question.
The preprocessor takes a look at your source code just before it goes off to the compiler, does a little formatting, and carries out any instructions you have given it.
Like what?
Well, preprocessor instructions are called preprocessor directives, and they all start with a #.
Like #include?
Exactly.
Each # command that the preprocessor encounters results in a modification to the source code in some way. Let’s take a look at them briefly in turn, and then we’ll see what goes on behind the scenes.