I'm trying to figure out how I can concatenate a #define
'd int to a #define
'd string using the C Preprocessor. My compiler is GCC 4.1 on CentOS 5. The solution should also work for MinGW.
I'd like to append a version number onto a string, but the only way I can get it to work is to make a copy of the version number defines as strings.
The closest thing I could find was a method of quoting macro arguments, but it doesn't work for #define
s
This is does not work.
#define MAJOR_VER 2
#define MINOR_VER 6
#define MY_FILE "/home/user/.myapp" #MAJOR_VER #MINOR_VER
It doesn't work without the #
s either because the values are numbers and it would expand to "/home/user/.myapp" 2 6
, which isn't valid C.
This does work, but I don't like having copies of the version defines because I do need them as numbers as well.
#define MAJOR_VER 2
#define MINOR_VER 6
#define MAJOR_VER_STR "2"
#define MINOR_VER_STR "6"
#define MY_FILE "/home/user/.myapp" MAJOR_VER_STRING MINOR_VER_STRING
Classical C preprocessor question....
#define STR_HELPER(x) #x
#define STR(x) STR_HELPER(x)
#define MAJOR_VER 2
#define MINOR_VER 6
#define MY_FILE "/home/user/.myapp" STR(MAJOR_VER) STR(MINOR_VER)
The extra level of indirection will allow the preprocessor to expand the macros before they are converted to strings.
A working way is to write MY_FILE as a parametric macro:
#define MY_FILE(x,y) "/home..." #x #y
EDIT: As noted by "Lindydancer", this solution doesn't expand macros in arguments. A more general solution is:
#define MY_FILE_(x,y) "/home..." #x #y
#define MY_FILE(x,y) MY_FILE_(x,y)
MY_FILE
are macros, say A
and B
, this macro will expand to "/home..." "A" "B"
.
You can do that with BOOST_PP_STRINGIZE:
#define MAJOR_VER 2
#define MINOR_VER 6
#define MY_FILE "/home/user/.myapp" BOOST_PP_STRINGIZE(MAJOR_VER) BOOST_PP_STRINGIZE(MINOR_VER)
C
tag.
Success story sharing
#
only works with macro arguments. However, theSTR_HELPER
macro is needed to avoid turning the macroMAJOR_VER
into the string"MAJOR_VAR"
, wheres we want to the result to be"2"
.