Preprocessor

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The preprocessor is executed at translation phase 4, before the compilation. The result of preprocessing is single file which is then passed to the actual compiler.

[edit] Directives

The preprocessing directives control the behavior of the preprocessor. Each directive occupies one line and has the following format:

  • # character
  • preprocessing instruction (one of define, undef, include, if, ifdef, ifndef, else, elif, endif, line, error, warning, pragma) [1]
  • arguments (depends on the instruction)
  • line break

The null directive (# followed by a line break) is allowed and has no effect.

[edit] Capabilities

The preprocessor has the source file translation capabilities:

  • conditionally compile of parts of source file (controlled by directive #if, #ifdef, #ifndef, #else, #elif and #endif).
  • replace text macros while possibly concatenating or quoting identifiers (controlled by directives #define and #undef, and operators # and ##)
  • include other files (controlled by directive #include)
  • cause a warning (controlled by directive #warning)
  • cause an error (controlled by directive #error)

The following aspects of the preprocessor can be controlled:

[edit] Footnotes

  1. These are the directives defined by the standard. The standard does not define behavior for other directives: they might be ignored, have some useful meaning, or make the program ill-formed. Even if otherwise ignored, they are removed from the source code when the preprocessor is done.