Defining a replacement for punctuators in C - c

Several days ago, someone told me that their keyboard is faulty, leaving them unable to type ( on their keyboard. The first thing that came to my mind, when writing C, was to either copy the character from somewhere and just paste it or to try to use preprocessor directive #define . Once I tried to use #define, I realised that gcc doesn't let me write something like #define OB ( and I pretty much understand why. Is it possible to write something similar to this and let me replace a punctuator using #define?

If there was a trigraph for ( I would suggest that. Otherwise your solution with a macro might work, but unfortunately when written in C or a header file it can not be parsed as you want it. However using gcc you can specify that macro directly using the -D option.
Example:
int main OB ) {
printf OB "Hello, world\n");
}
I can compile it using the following command: cc -o test test.c -DOB='('. I needed to add ' otherwise bash wouldn't accept that.
You can also use make adding the extra parameter to CPPFLAGS: CPPFLAGS+="-DOB='('" make test - again you need more quotes than usual otherwise all the shells would not understand unquoted (. Of course you can just add CPPFLAGS+=-DOB='(' directly to the Makefile.
Edit:
In fact you can still have a macro in code. But you have to tell gcc that ( is not a part of macro identifier. The following worked for me:
#define OB \
(
int main OB ) {
printf OB "Hello, world\n");
}

Related

Using macros to generalise code for function calls

I'm writing C code which requires me to use multiple function calls of the same definition which differ only by single characters. Is there a way I can make a macro function which takes say a number and can insert these calls into my code for me where I call the macro given I know the numbers at compile time:
i.e.
#define call_pin_macro(X)
enable_pin#X();
do_thing_pin#X();
do_other_thing_pin#X();
.
.
void pin_function(void){
call_pin_macro(1);
call_pin_macro(2);
call_pin_macro(3);
}
Instead of:
void pin_function(void){
enable_pin1();
do_thing_pin1();
do_other_thing_pin1();
enable_pin2();
do_thing_pin2();
do_other_thing_pin2();
enable_pin3();
do_thing_pin3();
do_other_thing_pin3();
}
As a note I have looked at stringification (Hence the included #X's) in gcc however I cannot get the above code to compile which I get an error "error: '#' is not followed by a macro parameter". And it thus it seems this isn't exactly the functionality I am after. Thanks in advance.
In gcc you can do it like this:
#define call_pin_macro(X) \
enable_pin##X(); \
do_thing_pin##X(); \
do_other_thing_pin##X();
The double hash is the macro concatenation operator. You don't want to use stringify because that will put quotes around it.
The backslashes allow you to continue the macro over several lines.

How to invoke the C preprocessor?

How can we invoke the C preprocessor in a C program, like if we want to prepend some of our files to the list of standard library files while using #include<file_name> using -I, what we should do?
Adding, if we want to add comments to the output of our program, I have heard that we can use -C invocation commands. How to do it? Somebody please correct me and explain further if I am wrong.
The mechanism you linked to is explicitly not to be supposed from within a program, but it is to use the preprocessor for other things, like text libraries etc.
So you can transform a text using the means of the C preprocessor and convert it to its "expanded" form, without compiling it (perhaps it is a configuration file or whatever).
For example, you can have a
commonpart.h:
[General]
foo=1
bar=2
#define VALUE 3
and a
cfg.tmpl
#include "commonpart.h"
// This is a commet which won't show up in the end
baz=VALUE
you can do cpp -P cfg.tmpl and thus compile all this to
[General]
foo=1
bar=2
baz=3

gcc check if file is main (#if __BASE_FILE__ == __FILE__)

In ruby there's very common idiom to check if current file is "main" file:
if __FILE__ == $0
# do something here (usually run unit tests)
end
I'd like to do something similar in C after reading gcc documentation I've figured that it should work like this:
#if __FILE__ == __BASE_FILE__
// Do stuff
#endif
the only problem is after I try this:
$ gcc src/bitmap_index.c -std=c99 -lm && ./a.out
src/bitmap_index.c:173:1: error: token ""src/bitmap_index.c"" is not valid in preprocessor expressions
Am I using #if wrong?
As summary for future guests:
You cannot compare string using #if
BASE_FILE is the name of file that is being compiled (that Is actually what I wanted).
Best way to do this is to set flag during compilation with -D
in gcc you can use:
#if __INCLUDE_LEVEL__ == 0
or:
if(!__INCLUDE_LEVEL__)
to check if your inside the __BASE_FILE__
Yes, you are misusing #if. It only works on integer constant expressions. But even if you were using if, comparing pointers for equality is never a valid way to compare strings in C.
It seems you can't.
Alternatively, it works perfectly fine on a regular if condition, and gcc can optimize this nicely.
if (!strcmp(__BASE_FILE__, __FILE__)) {
// works.
}
but you can't define new main functions or use other preprocessor tricks. but you could short-circuit main by using static methods, but that's harsh and dirty.
But maybe you shouldn't do it. in Ruby/python, this works because usage of files is done at runtime. in C, all files are to be compiled to be used.
Keep in mind that most build system will build one file at a time, building them as object files, and rebuilding them only when necessary. So
__BASE_FILE__ and __FILE__
will be equals most of the time in sources files, if not always. And i would strongly discourage you to do this in header files.
It's easier to just put your tests in separate files, only linking them when needed.
Yup, as others say, you're misusing it since you can't compare strings that way in C, and especially not in the preprocessor.
The file that defines int main(int argc, char* argv[]) is the main file. There can be only one such function in an executable.
In addition to what others have said (you can't have the C preprocessor compare strings), be careful with __BASE_FILE__ because it may not correspond to your definition of "main" file. __BASE_FILE__ is the name of the file being compiled, so it's always equal to __FILE__ in source files, and only differs in headers and other included files.
In particular, __BASE_FILE__ is not the name of the file which contains the main() function.

Pre-preprocessor

I want to have a C pre-preprocessor which is filtering some #define statements from the sourcecode without changing anything else.
Why? This should be used to remove some client specific code from the sources if the source is handed out to another client.
Does anyone know of an existing solution?
Thanks!
Simon
You can use something like awk instead of CPP ? Add some flags in your code surrounding the piece of code to be removed. For example:
(...)
//BEGIN_REMOVE_THIS_CODE
printf("secret code");
//END_REMOVE_THIS_CODE
(...)
then write a awk script to remove this code, something like...
BEGIN { write=1;}
/^\/\/BEGIN_REMOVE_THIS_CODE/ { write=0; next;}
/^\/\/END_REMOVE_THIS_CODE/ { write=1; next;}
{
if(write==1) print $0;
}
I recommend using an additional macro language layer for code filtering, like filepp. You may use a C preprocessor friendly syntax to express which parts belongs to which clients.
//%ifdef CLIENT_A
code for client A
//%endif
//%ifdef CLIENT_B
code for client B
//%endif
//%if "CLIENT_A" || "CLIENT_B"
code for client A and B
//%endif
The '//%' prefix enables You to compile the code unmodified. You may run filepp before You giving out the code to a client.
This sounds like what I asked about in Is there a C pre-processor which eliminates ifdef blocks based on values defined. The best answer I got was sunifdef, or 'Son of unifdef', which has worked reliably for me on some excessively contorted conditional code (the accumulated crud from over 20 years of development on a wide variety of platforms with an inadequate theory of how to do platform-specific compilation).
I don't think you need a preprocessor for this. If you don't have nested #ifdef's in your code, any regex engine can remove anything that is located between #ifdef CLIENT and #endif (use non-greedy matching to match first #endif, not last).
I would put the client specific code in a separate directory or possibly part of a different project that would need to be checked out of the source control.
Put a function call that would be stubbed out or (I forget the proper term) loosely linked so that another function can be put in its place.
If you're using gcc, then you can use:
gcc <insert files here> -E
The -E option tells gcc to only preprocess the sources, and not to compile them.
Or, you could use grep to filter out specific files and let the preprocessor loose on them only.
grep -r '#define CLIENT_CODE' ./*.h
You can also try unifdef which is rather simpler than sunifdef.
Why don't you do something like:
client_a_specific_functions_definition.c
double discount_for_paying_upfront() { return 0.1; };
// ...
client_b_specific_functions_definition.c
double discount_for_paying_upfront() { return 0.05; };
// ...
When you hand out the code it is just a matter of selecting the right file with their specific definitions.
Then you would create a header file to include it where you need to access the client specific code with something like:
client_functions.h
#pragma once
double discount_for_paying_upfront();
#define stringify(x) #x
#define FILE2(a) stringify(client_##a##_specific_functions_definition.c)
#define FILE(a) FILE2(a)
#include FILE(CLIENT_NAME)
#undef stringify
#undef FILE2
#undef FILE
Then say you #include "client_functions.h" in your main.c. You could compile it with:
gcc -DCLIENT_NAME=a main.c -o a.exe
gcc -DCLIENT_NAME=b main.c -o b.exe
as far as I know... the preprocessor can be run as a separate step (using the correct compiler optios) . This way you can do whatever you want with the processed code.

problems with memset in Metal C

I’m trying to initialize the Metal C environment with the following code, but get the following errors on the memset line.
ERROR CCN3275 IMIJWS0.METAL.SAMPLIB(MEM):6 Unexpected text ')' encountered.
ERROR CCN3045 IMIJWS0.METAL.SAMPLIB(MEM):6 Undeclared identifier ___MEMSET.
ERROR CCN3277 IMIJWS0.METAL.SAMPLIB(MEM):6 Syntax error: possible missing ')' or ','?
CCN0793(I) Compilation failed for file //'IMIJWS0.METAL.SAMPLIB(MEM)'. Object file not created.
Below is my code
#include &lt string.h&gt
#include &lt stdlib.h&gt
#include &lt metal.h&gt
void mymtlfcn(void) {
struct __csysenv_s mysysenv;
memset ( &mysysenv, 0, sizeof ( mysysenv ) );
mysysenv.__cseversion = __CSE_VERSION_1;
mysysenv.__csesubpool = 129;
mysysenv.__cseheap31initsize = 131072;
mysysenv.__cseheap31incrsize = 8192;
mysysenv.__cseheap64initsize = 20;
mysysenv.__cseheap64incrsize = 1;
The issue was with the search order. Although I did search(/usr/metal/include) from with in my JCL I didn't proceed it with a nosearch option, so string.h was getting picked up from the standard system librarys instead of the version included with Metal C. I've pasted my optfile dataset I passed to the CPARM below for refference.
//OPTIONS DD *
SO
LIST
LONG
NOXREF
CSECT
METAL
LP64
NOSEARCH
search(/usr/include/metal/)
So, I have no idea. But some suggestions:
You might try copying/pasting this code here from this example just to make sure it works 'as expected'
Maybe try defining some of the macros here? (when I did C programming on zOS, I had to do include some weird macros in order to get stuff to work. I have no reasonable technical explanation for this.)
You could try searching for memset() using "=3.14" (from ispf.) See if any other modules use that function, and then check the headers that they include (or macros that they define - either in the C files or H files) to make it work.
Another thought: before the memset(), try doing putting a printf() in. If you get a syntax error on the same line (only for printf, rather than memset) then you can see if the problem is before line 6 - like a misplaced parenthesis.
Finally, if i recall correctly, I had to compile my individual modules, and then link them manually (unless I wrote a JCL to do this for me.) So you might have to link once to link with your other modules, and then link again against the C library. Not to be pedantic, but: you're fairly certain that you're doing all of the link passes?
I realize that's a lot of hoops to try and you've probably already read the manuals, but maybe there is something useful to try?
Also, and you probably already know this, but this site (for looking up error codes) is infinitely useful. (along with the above links for full-text-searching the manual)
Edit: this page also talks about "built-in functions" - you could try (as stated at the bottom of the page) "#undef memcpy" to use the non-built-in version?
Can you show us your compiler arguments? You need to make sure that you're not pulling in the standard C header files in addition to the metal C ones. Here's an example:
xlc -c -Wc,metal,longname,nosearch,'list(./)' -I. -I /usr/include/metal -I "//'SYS1.SIEAHDRV'" -S -qlanglvl=extended foo.c
as -mrent -mgoff -a=foo.list -o foo.o foo.s
ld -bac=1 -brent -S "//'SYS1.CSSLIB'" -o foo foo.o
Are you missing the closing brace '}' for the function? How about any missing semi-colon line terminators? When missing braces/semi-colons the z/OS C compiler throws some strange/misleading messages sometimes. I don't have it to try out, but I'm assuming Metal does as well.

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