#define p

[Frank Silvermann]

#define q p

I must admit to a most elementary confusion. I have only ever used
#define to, in point of fact, #redefine . The above is standard. Is
the following:

#define UNNAMED_OS_32_L EAN_AND_MEAN

? frank
--------
-1

[Frank Silvermann]

Keith Thompson wrote:

"Joe Smith" <gr**********@n etzero.net> writes:

"Keith Thompson" <ks***@mib.or g> wrote in message
news:ln******** ****@nuthaus.mi b.org...

Frank Silvermann <in*****@invali d.net> writes:
Yeah. What does the preprocessor do with:
#define SWAP(m, n) (tmp = m, m = n, n= tmp)
?
This is a "function-like" macro. An invocation of it requires
arguments in parentheses. SWAP(foo, bar) is replaced by the
definition of SWAP, with each occurrence of m replaced by foo,
and each occurrence of n replaced by bar.

I agologize in advance for confusion with my newsreaders, the other one of
which is behaving badly despite having been killed and re-installed.
Anyways, am I right to think that if I have this macro, then I'm going to
want to have a 'tmp', 'm' and 'n' of the same type, and that this type could
be different depending on what is in scope during the SWAP?

Right. This:

SWAP(foo, bar)

is *exactly* equivalent to this:

(tmp = foo, foo = bar, bar= tmp)

so exactly the same considerations apply.

Incidentally, it's generally safer to fully parenthesize each macro
argument in a macro definition:

#define SWAP(m, n) (tmp = (m), (m) = (n), (n) = tmp)

It shouldn't matter for any reasonable invocation of SWAP(), but it's
easier to *always* use parentheses than to try to figure out when
they're not required (and force anyone reading and/or maintaining the
code to stop and think about it).

This statement is different from
#define SOMETHING
, and according to the above, the preprocessor replaces SOMETHING with
nothing. (?)
Right.

But this amnesia comes after the #IFDEF's, probably right at the end of step
4?

Yes, assuming that "step 4" means "translatio n phase 4".

Here's my usual example of preprocessor abuse:

#include <stdio.h>

#define SIX 1+5
#define NINE 8+1

int main(void)
{
printf("%d * %d = %d\n", SIX, NINE, SIX * NINE);
return 0;
}

Fun example. The fellow who was top-posting today wrote:
"Btw... nice use, of algebraic precedence (always nice to see)."
I didn't want to ruin his day and tell him that algebraists typically
work right to left and that telling left from right is the hardest thing
we do. Your example shows good form not just for a walking C
encyclopedia, but the next guy as well. frank

[Dave Thompson]

On Thu, 08 Jun 2006 19:00:49 GMT, Keith Thompson <ks***@mib.or g>
wrote:

Frank Silvermann <in*****@invali d.net> writes:

The direction I'm headed with this is to wonder about the types of 'm'
and 'n'. frank

They don't have types. Macro replacement just does textual
substitution (actually it works on tokens, but it's pretty much the
same thing). The preprocessor has no concept of types or expressions.

<pedantic> Preprocessor _macros_ have no concept of types, or of
expressions beyond matching/nested parentheses.

Preprocessor #if and #elif do have expressions _almost_ the same as
constant (compile-time) expressions in the language, but types limited
to the largest integer types, [u]long in C90 and [u]intmax_t in C99.

- David.Thompson1 at worldnet.att.ne t