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The C PreprocessorC codes are actually processed by two completely independent programs, the preprocessor (basically an automatic text editor) and the compiler. Preprocessor syntaxAll preprocessor directives begin with # as the very first non-space character. This is important - the first non-space character must be #, tabs will work with some implementations, but are not ANSI-compliant and will fail with others. Spaces can appear before the # in ANSI C. Preprocessor directives do not end with a semicolon like C commands. A preprocessor directive ends with the end-of-line character, and can be continued on more than one line by hiding the carriage return with the \ character. standard preprocessor macros
defining symbolsPreprocessor symbols might have a value, or be true or false (given C's definition of 0
as false and non-zero as true). The following will define NROW as 10, and
DEBUG as true: Symbols can also be defined on the compiler's command line, generally with the -D
option. The following will set DEBUG to true, and NROW to 5 Symbols are undefined (set to false) with the directive define vs constThe following two lines should have equivalent effects #define NROW 10 where the first is a preprocessor directive and the second a line of C source code. The first ends with an end-of-line and the second with a ";". In the second NROW is treated as a C variable and checked for syntax, while in the first all occurrences of the string NROW are changed to the string 10. If a variable is set with the const specifier then it can be used to declare the dimension of a vector in ISO C++, and in many C compilers. This is not part of ISO C however and should be avoided. The const specifier also has different meanings in C and C++ in some cases. Control structurePairs of #ifdef ... #endif directives are used to include source code depending on the
values of certain symbols. Code that should be included only when DEBUG is set would
be placed between the pair, as follows: This can be expanded to #ifdef #else #endif to comment out code/* 0 is false in C, so this test never passes. this is the best way to comment
out code. declaring dimension of arrays#define NROW 10 In C++ the two statements #define NROW 10 have similar effect, and you are able to declare arrays with them. Notice that the define was a preprocessor directive so that all occurrences of NROW are changed to 10 before the compiler sees the source, and the const is a line of C that the compiler actually knows about. Include filesTo include files located elsewhere such as headers, use #include #include "header.h" /* this is a user defined header, located in the user's
space */ If the system responds that it cannot find a header it is necessary to tell the
compiler where they are located. This is generally done with the -Ipath option. external symbols defined__STDC__ is true if compiler is ANSI standard C _MSC_VER Microsoft Visual C++ compiler Use with Fortran?There is nothing to stop you from using the C preprocessor with Fortran too. The preprocessor directives are removed from the code before it is sent to the compiler, so it would function as a simple text editor. Most C systems have an option to pass code through the preprocessor only, and send the edited output to another place. This could be a Fortran compiler. Many Fortran systems have options to do this for you - on many systems a filename ending with ".F" will be sent through the preprocessor automatically. |