C Macros

Apr 3, 2023

From K&R

• Use # as replacement text
  

• And Use ## to concatenate
  The preprocessor operator ## provides a way to concatenate actual arguments during macro expansion.If a parameter in the replacement text is adjacent to a ##the parameter is replaced by the actual argument, the ## and surrounding white space are removed, and the result is re-scanned.For example, the macro paste concatenates its two arguments:
  #define paste(front, back) front ## back

Nonetheless, macros are valuable.One practical example comes from <stdio.h>, in which getchar and putchar are often defined as macros to avoid the e run-time overhead of a function call per character processed.The functions in <ctype.h> are also usually implemented as macros.