Question about syntax of a C function I found [duplicate] - c

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What does the comma operator , do?
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I'm looking through this project klib, and in one of the files (kseq.h, 75-77), there is macros this function:
#ifndef kroundup32
#define kroundup32(x) (--(x), (x)|=(x)>>1, (x)|=(x)>>2, (x)|=(x)>>4, (x)|=(x)>>8, (x)|=(x)>>16, ++(x))
#endif
How does this function work? Does it return 7 things? I have an idea of the basic operations inside, I just don't get what is the form of its operation or output.

Normally you'd define this as a function and let the compiler figure out the rest, but if you're implementing it as a macro you need to consider the context.
Remember macros get expanded in the source, so they need to be syntactically valid in the context they appear. Within a function call you can't use ;, so , is used instead as a substitute.
Like this function might be called:
int v = 5 + 3 << 2;
if (other_fn(kroundup(v)) { ... }
Where using ; there would obviously break things badly. It needs ,:
if (other_fn((--(v), (v)|=(v)>>1, (v)|=(v)>>2, (v)|=(v)>>4, (v)|=(v)>>8, (v)|=(v)>>16, ++(v))) { ... }
Now the (x) part is a tradition to handle complex expressions:
if (other_fn(kroundup(5 + 3 << 2)) { ... }
Yet it doesn't handle those correctly due to using operators like -- that make no sense on anything but variables:
if (other_fn((--(5 + 3 << 2), (5 + 3 << 2)|=(5 + 3 << 2)>>1, ..., ++(5 + 3 << 2))) { ... }
It should be just x in the macro to catch problems like this.
In all honesty this macro shouldn't exist, the macro is just a terrible idea because it's buggy, it impedes understanding, and you should just let the compiler inline it as a regular function it if it thinks it can, like this:
int kroundup32(x) {
--x;
x |= x>>1;
x |= x>>2;
x |= x>>4;
x |= x>>8;
x |= x>>16;
++x;
return x;
}
Where that is way more readable.

Related

Use macro with token-pasting operator

I am facing a problem while making a code more general, I want to replace hardcoded values with macro but I am facing this issue :
Original code :
#define io_dir_in(port, pin) NRF_P##port->PIN_CNF[pin] = (GPIO_PIN_CNF_DIR_Input << GPIO_PIN_CNF_DIR_Pos) + (GPIO_PIN_CNF_INPUT_Connect << GPIO_PIN_CNF_INPUT_Pos)
io_dir_in(0, 0);
I added :
#define A_Port 0
#define A_Pin 0
And replaced :
io_dir_in(A_Port, A_Pin);
But I get the error identifer "NRF_PA_Port" is undefined because NRF_P and A_Port are getting concatenated. Anyway to make it work ?
The problem is that "concatenation of tokens" is done before an expansion of tokens. You need to add an extra step of expansion in between.
#define io_dir_in_impl(port, pin) NRF_P##port->PIN_CNF[pin] = (GPIO_PIN_CNF_DIR_Input << GPIO_PIN_CNF_DIR_Pos) + (GPIO_PIN_CNF_INPUT_Connect << GPIO_PIN_CNF_INPUT_Pos)
#define io_dir_in(port, pin) io_dir_in_impl(port, pin)
Now before io_dir_in_impl() is expanded all its arguments are expanded. Thus A_Port will be replaced with 0.
With this tweak io_dir_in(A_Port, A_Pin); expands as:
NRF_P0->PIN_CNF[0] = (GPIO_PIN_CNF_DIR_Input << GPIO_PIN_CNF_DIR_Pos) + (GPIO_PIN_CNF_INPUT_Connect << GPIO_PIN_CNF_INPUT_Pos);

C functions that always return constant

What is a good way to express the semantics "this function is always going to return a constant value" in C?
I'm thinking about inline assembly functions that reads read-only registers, and potentially shift and/or masks on them. Clearly, during run time, the function's return value isn't going to change; so the compiler can potentially avoid inlining or calling the function all the time, but instead aim to reuse the value from the first call in a given scope.
const int that_const_value()
{
return (ro_register >> 16) & 0xff;
}
I could store the value and reuse it. But there could be indirect calls to this function, say, through other macro expansions.
#define that_bit() that_const_value() & 0x1
#define other_bit() that_const_value() & 0x2
...
if (that_bit()) {
...
}
...
if (other_bit()) {
...
}
Defining the original function as const doesn't seem to cut it, or at least in the examples I tried.
I am not 100 percent sure that I understand your question correctly but are you looking for a solution like this:
#define that_const_value ((ro_register >> 16) &0xff)
#define that_bit (that_const_value & 0x1)
#define other_bit (that_const_value & 0x2)
This would just 'replace' everything at compille time, so you can do:
if(that_bit)
{
//Do That
}
if(other_bit)
{
//Do Other
}

Using a bitmask and if statement

I am trying to allow multiple cases to run in a switch statement. I have a bitmask as follows:
#define SHOOT_ROCKET 2 << 16
#define MOVE_FORWARD 3 << 16
Later, I do
switch (int game_action)
and I have
case SHOOT_ROCKET:
result = fire_weapon(rl);
I don't want to 'break', because I want possibility of multiple actions. But I am returning a value called 'result'. I store this as a variable and return at the end. I can tell other case: statements are running though even when they shouldn't because result keeps getting changed and doesn't if I add break;
What is the best way to deal with this?
Update: I've been told to do if instead.
I changed my << bitmasks so they start at 1 now.
I am experiencing a weird bug
if (game_action->action & SHOOT_ROCKET)
{
game_action->data=5;
}
if (game_action->action & MOVE_FORWARD)
{
game_action->data=64;
}
I am not concerned about game_action being overwritten when I intend for multiple if's to evaluate to true
However: it seems MOVE_FORWARD is happening even if I only try and shoot a rocket!
game_action is a void pointer normally, so this is how it's setup in the function:
game_action = (game_action) *game_action_ptr;
I have verified the bitmask is correct with
printf("%d", game_action->action >> 16) which prints 2.
So why is '3' (the move forward) happening when I am only trying to shoot a rocket?
Please do update your question.
So why is '3' (the move forward) happening when I am only trying to shoot a rocket?
The first thing you want to look at is
#define SHOOT_ROCKET 2 << 16
#define MOVE_FORWARD 3 << 16
and think what that evaluates to. It will evaluate to the following binary numbers (Python is handy for this kind of stuff, 0b is just a prefix that means binary is following):
>>> bin(2 << 16)
'0b100000000000000000'
>>> bin(3 << 16)
'0b110000000000000000'
So you see that you use one bit twice in your #defines (Retired Ninja already pointed this out). This means that if game_action->action is set to anything where the bit 2 << 16 is 1, both of your ifs will evaluate to true, because both #defines have that bit set to 1.
to make them mutually exclusive, should i do 2, 4, 8, instead of 1,2,3,4?
If you want to easily keep track of which bits are used, you can either use powers of two (1,2,4,8,16, etc), e.g. #define MOVE_FORWARD 4 (I'm ignoring the << 16 you have, you can add that if you want), or you can shift a 1 by a variable number of bits, both result in the same binary numbers:
#define MOVE_LEFT 1 << 0
#define MOVE_RIGHT 1 << 1
#define MOVE_UP 1 << 3
#define MOVE_DOWN 1 << 4
There are legitimate cases where bitmasks need to have more than one bit set, for example for checking if any one of several bits are set:
#define MOVE_LEFT ... (as above)
#define SHOOT_ROCKET 1 << 5
#define SHOOT_GUN 1 << 6
//...
#define ANY_MOVEMENT 0xF
#define ANY_WEAPON_USE 0xF << 4
and then check:
if (action & ANY_MOVEMENT) { ... }
if (action & ANY_WEAPON_USE) { ... }
place parens '(' ')' around the value part (2<<15) kind of values so there is no errors introduced by the text replacement.
I.E. this:
'if( (&game_action->action & MOVE_FORWARD) == MOVE_FORWARD)'
becomes
'if( (&game_action->action & 2 << 16) == 2 << 16)'
Note the posted code is missing a left paren, which I added.
Where the '&' has a higher Precedence the '<<' so it (effectively) becomes
'if( ( (&game_action->action & 2) << 16) == 2 << 16)'
where the '&' is done to the 2 and not to the 2<<16

Can you perform fixed-length bit reversal in #defines / preprocessor directives?

I am writing C code (not c++) for a target with very limited ROM, but I want the code to be easy to customize for other similar targets with #defines. I have #defines used to specify the address and other values of the device, but as a code-saving technique, these values are necessary bitwise reversed. I can enter these by first manually reversing them, but this would be confusing for future use. Can I define some sort of macro that performs a bitwise reversal?
As seen here (Best Algorithm for Bit Reversal ( from MSB->LSB to LSB->MSB) in C), there is no single operation to switch the order in c. Because of this, if you were to create a #define macro to perform the operation, it would actually perform quite a bit of work on each use (as well as significantly increasing the size of your binary if used often). I would recommend manually creating the other ordered constant and just using clear documentation to ensure the information about them is not lost.
I think something like this ought to work:
#define REV2(x) ((((x)&1)<<1) | (((x)>>1)&1))
#define REV4(x) ((REV2(x)<<2) | (REV2((x)>>2)))
#define REV8(x) ((REV4(x)<<4) | (REV4((x)>>4)))
#define REV16(x) ((REV8(x)<<8) | (REV8((x)>>8)))
#define REV32(x) ((REV16(x)<<16) | (REV16((x)>>16)))
It uses only simple operations which are all safe for constant expressions, and it's very likely that the compiler will evaluate these at compile time.
You can ensure that they're evaluated at compile time by using them in a context which requires a constant expression. For example, you could initialize a static variable or declare an enum:
enum {
VAL_A = SOME_NUMBER,
LAV_A = REV32(VAL_A),
};
For the sake of readable code I'd not recommend it, but you could do something like
#define NUMBER 2
#define BIT_0(number_) ((number_ & (1<<0)) >> 0)
#define BIT_1(number_) ((number_ & (1<<1)) >> 1)
#define REVERSE_BITS(number_) ((BIT_1(number_) << 0) + (BIT_0(number_) << 1))
int main() {
printf("%d --> %d", NUMBER, REVERSE_BITS(NUMBER));
}
There are techniques for this kind of operation (see the Boost Preprocessor library, for example), but most of the time the easiest solution is to use an external preprocessor written in some language in which bit manipulation is easier.
For example, here is a little python script which will replace all instances of #REV(xxxx)# where xxxx is a hexadecimal string with the bit-reversed constant of the same length:
#!/bin/python
import re
import sys
reg = re.compile("""#REV\(([0-9a-fA-F]+)\)#""")
def revbits(s):
return "0X%x" % int(bin(int(s, base=16))[-1:1:-1].ljust(4*len(s), '0'), base=2)
for l in sys.stdin:
sys.stdout.write(reg.sub(lambda m: revbits(m.group(1)), l))
And here is a version in awk:
awk 'BEGIN{R["0"]="0";R["1"]="8";R["2"]="4";R["3"]="C";
R["4"]="2";R["5"]="A";R["6"]="6";R["7"]="E";
R["8"]="1";R["9"]="9";R["A"]="5";R["B"]="D";
R["C"]="3";R["D"]="B";R["E"]="7";R["F"]="F";
R["a"]="5";R["b"]="D";R["c"]="3";R["d"]="B";
R["e"]="7";R["f"]="F";}
function bitrev(x, i, r) {
r = ""
for (i = length(x); i; --i)
r = r R[substr(x,i,1)]
return r
}
{while (match($0, /#REV\([[:xdigit:]]+\)#/))
$0 = substr($0, 1, RSTART-1) "0X" bitrev(substr($0, RSTART+5, RLENGTH-7)) substr($0, RSTART+RLENGTH)
}1' \
<<<"foo #REV(23)# yy #REV(9)# #REV(DEADBEEF)#"
foo 0X32 yy 0X9 0Xfeebdaed

Writing a C Macro

I have to write a macro that get as parameter some variable, and for each two sequential bits with "1" value replace it with 0 bit.
For example: 10110100 will become 10000100.
And, 11110000->00000000
11100000->100000000
I'm having a troubles writing that macro. I've tried to write a macro that get wach bit and replace it if the next bit is the same (and they both 1), but it works only for 8 bits and it's very not friendly...
P.S. I need a macro because I'm learning C and this is an exercise i found and i couldn't solve it myself. i know i can use function to make it easily... but i want to know how to do it with macros.
Thanks!
#define foo(x,i) (((x) & (3<<i)) == (3<<i)) ? ((x) - (3 << i)) : (x)
#define clear_11(x) foo(foo(foo(foo(foo(foo(foo(foo(foo(x,8),7),6),5),4),3),2),1),0)
This will do the job. However the expansion is quite big and compilation may take a while. So do not try this at work ;)
#define clear_bit_pairs(_x) ((_x)&~(((_x)&((_x)>>1))*3))
#define clear_bit_pairs(_x) ((_x) ^ ((((_x)&((_x)>>1))<<1) | ((_x)&((_x)>>1))) )
This will work, but it does not pair up. If it finds the consecutive '1' it will just erase. for example 11100000 will become 00000000 because the first 111 are consecutive.
#define foo(x) ({ \
typeof(x) _y_ = x; \
for(int _i_ = 0; _i_ < (sizeof(typeof(x)) << 3) + 1; _i_++) { \
if((_y_ >> _i_ & 3) == 3) { \
_y_ &= ~(3 << _i_); \
} \
} \
_y_; \
})
This probably only works in GCC, since it uses inline statements. I haven't tested it, so it probably doesn't work at all. It is your job to make it work. :-)
The nice thing about this is that it will work with any integral type. It also doesn't rely on any external functions. The downside is that it is not portable. (And I realize that this is sort of cheating.)

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