Remark: unrecognized token warning for the macro concatenation - c

#define DATA_VAR_FILENAME(PROJECT_ID) QUOTES(..\ ## PROJECT_ID ## _data_var.h)
or
#define DATA_VAR_FILENAME(PROJECT_ID) QUOTES(..\##PROJECT_ID##_data_var.h)
for the above line I got below warning
remark: unrecognized token
How to eliminate the warning ?

From the look of it, it looks that you are trying to compose a filename in the preprocessor. This is not possible like that, since the strings that form path names are not tokens for the preprocessor.
Usually there is no need for such a manipulation. String literals are simply concatenated too larger string literals in a later compilation phase. Something like
"../" "my_file.h"
should do the trick.
You also seem to have the difficulty that on your platform \ is the path separator. So you'd have to be careful to escape it in string literals, something like "..\\"

Related

C preprocessor: building a path string

Given a macro that has been defined previously:
#define FILENAME somefile.h
I want to concatenate this with another macro-string that defines the (relative) path of this file. My current approach is to do this like so:
#define DIRECTORY ../somedir/
#define STRINGIFY_(x) #x
#define FILE2_(dir, file) STRINGIFY_(dir ## file)
#define FILE_(dir, file) FILE2_(dir, file)
#include FILE_(DIRECTORY, FILENAME)
This however results in an error (GCC4.9):
error: pasting "/" and "file" does not give a valid preprocessing token
Removing the final forward slash from the DIRECTORY definition removes this error, but obviously does not yield the desired result. Similar errors appear when I try to smuggle the / in otherwise. For example:
#define FILE2_(dir, file) STRINGIFY_(dir ## / ## file)
does not work for the same reason.
I would like to know what is going wrong here and, obviously, how to circumvent this.
EDIT: Changed double underscores to singles on Columbo's advice. Apparently, identifiers containing double underscores are reserved to the implementation, regardless of where they appear (I was under the impression that this only held true for double underscores at the beginning of an ID).
[cpp.include]/4:
A preprocessing directive of the form
# include pp-tokens new-line
(that does not match one of the two previous forms) is permitted. The
preprocessing tokens after include in the directive are processed
just as in normal text (i.e., each identifier currently defined as a
macro name is replaced by its replacement list of preprocessing
tokens). If the directive resulting after all replacements does not
match one of the two previous forms, the behavior is
undefined.152
152 Note that adjacent string literals are not
concatenated into a single string literal (see the translation phases
in 2.2); thus, an expansion that results in two string literals is an
invalid directive.
So though #include MACRO is valid, MACRO must directly expand to an otherwise valid argument to #include. The concatenation of string literals happens two translation phases after preprocessing.
Also, in the definition of the ## operator, [cpp.concat]/3:
For both object-like and function-like macro invocations, before the replacement list is reexamined for more
macro names to replace, each instance of a ## preprocessing token in the replacement list (not from an
argument) is deleted and the preceding preprocessing token is concatenated with the following preprocessing
token.
[..] If the result is not a valid preprocessing token, the behavior is undefined.
Hence the result of A##B must be one valid preprocessing token. / is an own preprocessing token, and so are the names of the directories and files.
You can't concatenate "abc and /xyz", since abc/ is not a valid preprocessing token - "abc is not one preprocessing token, but two, though "abc" is one.
On the other hand, if you concatenate <abc/ and xyz>, then / and xyz are concatenated, examined, and we have a problem again.
Thus it appears to be impossible to concat the paths using ##. Your approach looks quite impossible to me, too.
With GCC, this is fine though:
#define PATH <foo/bar/
#define FILE boo>
#define ARG PATH FILE
#include ARG
It works because GCCs preprocessor removes the white space (for some reason). Does not work on VC++ or Clang and isn't covered by standard anyway, so definitely not recommended.

C compiler warning Unknown escape sequence '\.' using regex for c program

I am using regex to determine a command line argument has the .dat extension. I am trying the following regex:
#define to_find "^.*\.(dat)?"
For some reason I am getting the warning I stated in the title of this question. First, is this expression correct? I believe it is. Second, if it is correct, how can i get rid of this warning?
I am coding a c program in Xcode and the above #define is in my .h file.
Thanks!
The warning is coming from the C compiler. It is telling you that \. is not a known escape sequence in C. Since this string is going to a regex engine, you need to double-escape the slash, like this:
#define to_find "^.*\\.(dat)?"
This regex would match a string with an optional .dat extension, with dat being optional. However, the dot . is required. If you want the dot to be optional as well, put it inside the parentheses, like this: ^.*(\\.dat)?.
Note that you can avoid escaping the individual metacharacters by enclosing them in square brackets, like this:
#define to_find "^.*([.]dat)?"
You need
#define to_find "^.*\\.(dat)?"
Should do the trick as the \ needs to be escaped for C and not the benefit for regex at this stage

Dot in regular expression (regex)

I am using slre (https://code.google.com/p/slre/) for providing a regex library for a c program.
I want to match an IP address with following pattern: "^(([0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])\.){3}([0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])$"
I get following compile error: Warning: unknown excape sequence '\.'
I also tried it with '\\.' --> the compile error is gone, but it's still saying it doesn't match.
if (!slre_compile(&slre, settings[i].regex)) {
printf("Error compiling RE: %s\n", slre.err_str);
}
else if (!slre_match(&slre, settings[i].value, strlen(settings[i].value), captures)) {
printf("\nSetting '%s' does not match the regular expression!", settings[i].internName);
}
settings[i].regex is a char* with the regular expression I mentioned above
settings[i].value is a char*
the string I am trying to match is 8.8.8.8
Is there any other way to check for a dot?
Try [.]
Dot isn't special inside character class.
The C compiler is seeing your backslash as an attempt to escape a character in C, in the same way that \n becomes a newline. You need to use a double-backslash:
\\.
The C compiler will turn that into a single backslash and pass that to the regex library.
That's the source of the compiler warning - if it's still not matching after you add the extra backslash then you have a different problem as well.
According to http://derekslager.com/blog/posts/2007/09/a-better-dotnet-regular-expression-tester.ashx your regex does match 8.8.8.8, so the problem isn't with the regex itself.
Your question is about C, but if you can compile with C++11 you can have a look to literal raw string
http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2007/n2442.htm
std::string literal_string = R"literal string\. \n";

What kind of statements,keywords,arguments etc can span multiple lines,and what need "\" for this?

How to know what kind of "things" can span multiple lines in C code without needing a \ character at the end of the line?And what kind of "things" need the \?How to know that?For example, in the following code, if and printf() work fine if I split them up in multiple lines.
if
(2<5)
printf
("Hi");
But in the following code,printf() needs a \ ,else shows error:
printf("Hi \
");
Similarly,the following shows error without a \
char name[]="Alexander the \
great of Greece";
So please tell me how to know when to use the \ while spanning multiple lines in C code, and when we can do without it?I mean, like if works both with and without the \.
This is about a concept called 'tokens'. A token is source-program text that the compiler does not break down into component elements. Literals (42, "text"), variable names, keywords are tokens.
Endline escaping is important for string constants only because it breaks apart a token. In your first example line breaks don't split tokens. All whitespace symbols between tokens are ignored.
The exception is macro definitions. A macro definition is ended with line break, so you need to escape it. But macros are not C code.
If you want to break a string across lines, you can either use the \ as you have...
printf("Hello \
World");
Or, alternatively, you can terminate the string with a " and then start a new string on the next line with no punctuation...
printf("Hello "
"World");
To the best of my knowledge, the issue with lines applies in only two places... within a string and within a define..
#define MY_DEFINE(fp) \
fprintf( fp, "Hello "\
"World" );
In short, the \ character is telling the compiler this statement continues on the next line. However, C/C++ is not white-space dependent, so really the only place this would come up is on a statement that is expected to be on a single line... which would be a string or a define.
C does not depend on line feeds.
You could use line feeds anywhere you like, as well as just not using them at all.
This implies seeing string literals as one token.
But, as in real life: Too much or to few, both does make life difficult. Happyness is matter of balance ... :-)
Please note that lines starting with a # are not C code, but pre-processor instructions.

How can I insert a #defined string into a system() command? (win32)

Here is an overly simplified version of what I am trying to do:
#define LOGDIRECTORY C:\\logs\\
system("mkdir LOGDIRECTORY");
However the preprocessor, instead of swapping out the defined name is not. Instead the system command actually thinks LOGDIRECTORY is the name, and thus is shooting me errors when starting the program.
I know it's wrong and there must be something I can do with the " marks or other characters to specify what I want, but I can't figure it out. I don't want to hardcode the directory and file names because someone may want to change them in the future and it would be much easier to change a define than the whole function etc.
PS, I am coding this in plain C.
#define LOGDIRECTORY C:\\logs\\
#define DEF2STR(x) #x
system("mkdir " DEF2STR(LOGDIRECTORY));
#define LOGDIRECTORY_WITH_QUOTES "C:\\logs\\"
system("mkdir " LOGDIRECTORY_WITH_QUOTES);
In C, you can do simple string concatenation by writing two string literals with no operator in between. "A" "B" will be converted to "AB" at compile time. You can also use this for splitting a long string to multiple lines.
printf("a very long "
"string indeed");
To convert the define to a proper string, use the pound sign (#) in a macro or skip the whole thing and include the quotes in the define itself.
If you were compiling with GCC, you would have no choice but to wrap the define with quotes since the final trailing backslash would be interpreted as a line continuation character, and if that does not cause an error on its own, the penultimate backslash would likely raise a error. However, if you chose to just get rid of the trailing backslash, you'd still need to use two levels of stringification macros, or your syscal would be "mkdir LOGDIRECTORY". See http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/cpp/Stringification.html
So the above example would become:
#define LOGDIRECTORY C:\\logs
#define DEF2STR(x) #x
#define STR(x) DEF2STR(x)
system("mkdir " STR(LOGDIRECTORY));

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