Preprocessor
The preprocessor is executed at translation phase 4, before the compilation. The result of preprocessing is a single file which is then passed to the actual compiler.
Directives
The preprocessing directives control the behavior of the preprocessor. Each directive occupies one line and has the following format:
- the
# . - a sequence of:
- a standard-defined directive name (listed below) followed by the corresponding arguments, or
- one or more preprocessing tokens where the beginning token is not a standard-defined directive name, in this case the directive is conditionally-supported with implementation-defined semantics
(e.g. a common non-standard extension is the directive
#warning which emits a user-defined message during compilation) (do C++23), or - nothing, in this case the directive has no effect.
- a line break.
#define EMPTY
EMPTY # include <file.h> // not a preprocessing directive
Capabilities
The preprocessor has the source file translation capabilities:
- conditionally compile parts of source file (controlled by directive #if, #ifdef, #ifndef, #else, #elif, #elifdef, #elifndef (od C++23) , and #endif).
- replace text macros while possibly concatenating or quoting identifiers (controlled by directives #define and #undef, and operators
# ,## ). include other files (controlled by directive #include and checked with__has_include
(od C++17)). - cause an error or warning (od C++23) (controlled by directive #error or #warning respectively (od C++23)).
The following aspects of the preprocessor can be controlled:
- implementation-defined behavior (controlled by directive #pragma and operator
_Pragma
(od C++11)). In addition, some compilers support (to varying degrees) the operator__pragma
as a non-standard extension. - file name and line information available to the preprocessor (controlled by directive #line).
Defect reports
The following behavior-changing defect reports were applied retroactively to previously published C++ standards.
DR | Applied to | Behavior as published | Correct behavior |
---|---|---|---|
CWG 2001 | (C++98) | the behavior of using non-standard-defined directives was not clear | made conditionally-supported |