Determining whether a macro has been defined

[BigMan]

Are these two lines equivalent?

#ifdef MACRO

#if MACRO==0

[Andrey Tarasevich]

BigMan wrote:

Are these two lines equivalent?

#ifdef MACRO

#if MACRO==0

No. Why would they be? If 'MACRO' is defined as

#define MACRO 2

the first variant will "evaluate" to 'true', while the second one - to
'false'.

--
Best regards,
Andrey Tarasevich

[gb]

No. The first one evalutes to true only if MACRO has been defined
(regardless of its definition). The second evalutes to true if either
of these is true:

MACRO is undefined
MACRO is defined but evalutes at compile time to 0.

See section 16.1.4 in the standard.

Gregg

[BigMan]

Ooops, I've put it the wrong way. Here's what I mean: does it matter
which line I use to check if a macro has been defined.

[Default User]

BigMan wrote:

Ooops, I've put it the wrong way. Here's what I mean: does it matter
which line I use to check if a macro has been defined.

Yes, it matters. Didn't you read the other posts? The first way is
correct.
Brian

[Ron Natalie]

Default User wrote:

BigMan wrote:

Ooops, I've put it the wrong way. Here's what I mean: does it matter
which line I use to check if a macro has been defined.

Yes, it matters. Didn't you read the other posts? The first way is
correct.

If he doesn't want to worry about the case where it is defined and is zero.
It doesn't matter.

[Default User]

Ron Natalie wrote:

Default User wrote:

BigMan wrote:

Ooops, I've put it the wrong way. Here's what I mean: does it matterwhich line I use to check if a macro has been defined.

Yes, it matters. Didn't you read the other posts? The first way is
correct.

If he doesn't want to worry about the case where it is defined and is

zero. It doesn't matter.

I don't recall that in his problem description.
Brian

[Andrey Tarasevich]

BigMan wrote:

Ooops, I've put it the wrong way. Here's what I mean: does it matter
which line I use to check if a macro has been defined.

Yes it does. The former method (with '#ifdef') checks whether it has
been defined. The latter one (with '#if') checks whether it is
substituted with integral zero (if well-formed). This is not the same.

For example, defining 'MACRO' as either '0' or '1' will give you the
same results from the former method (i.e. '#ifdef' will say that it is
defined in both cases), but different results from the latter method.

Defining 'MACRO' as follows

#define MACRO

will work with the former method, but it makes the latter one ill-formed.

--
Best regards,
Andrey Tarasevich

[BigMan]

Thanks to all of you! I think I got it.