Change something in C program with Shell Script - c

Question

Is it possible to write a script to run this code for different values of A;
#include <stdio.h>
#define A 3
int main (){
printf("In this version A = %d\n", A);
return(0);
}
I guess something like for loop?

Answer 1

Is it possible to write a script to run this code for different values of A;
Not as it is because the macro A has a fixed value defined in your code. Instead you can pass the value as an argument:
#include <stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char **argv){
if(argc == 2) {
printf("In this version A = %s\n", argv[1]);
}
return 0;
}
(The code doesn't check if its input is an integer -- which you can test if necessary).
and you can run it via script. For example, compile the above (gcc -Wall -Wextra test.c -o test) using a for loop of bash:
$ for ((i = 0; i < 10; i++)); do ./test $i; done
In this version A = 0
In this version A = 1
In this version A = 2
In this version A = 3
In this version A = 4
In this version A = 5
In this version A = 6
In this version A = 7
In this version A = 8
In this version A = 9
$

Answer 2

No. But you can make A a command line arg:
#include <stdio.h>
int main (int argc, char *argv[]) {
int a;
if (argc != 2 || sscanf(argv[1], "%d", &a) != 1) return 1;
printf("In this version A = %d\n", a);
return 0;
}
Compile to a binary named foo, then
foo 42
will print
In this version A = 42
You can also compile different versions by defining A in the compilation command line. From your original program, remove the #define. Then
gcc -DA=42 foo.c -o foo
./foo
will print the same as above.

Answer 3

DO you need run program repeated from script? why not to make program that accepts arguments from command line?
1)The main() function actually takes arguments, you can compile program once and pass different parameters, as shown in answers above
2) If you need to change some code parameters from make script, I'd say, create separate header that would contain defines and write script that would echo into that file (> for start, >> to continue writing).
3) Alternative way you can call you compiler with flag that would be equal to #define macro-command. For gcc it's -D, for example -DA=3 instead of #define A 3.
Most programs use makefile to be compiled. For that case you can script make file to use 2) or 3) Former is preferable because you do not need to pass that argument to all compilation targets, reducing time or re-compiling. There are tools for more advanced manipulations, like autoconf.