"few", "a few", "the few"

[Hrach_Techie]

These are called determiners.

Few, as a quantifier, comes before a plural countable nominal.

Few people attended the XML session.

When you use this quantifier without an article, it means that you probably expected more people to attend the XML session, but few people turned up.

The same quantifer "few" used with an indefinite article (a) helps you state a fact. It does not convey the comparison sense here. When you use the definite article with "few," it indicates a definite number and talks about the
subject of the sentence, as in "The few who attended...."

Hrach_Techie