C macros

Hi Barbara



Thank you for your comments. I am happy to start a discussion on macros.

Please understand I value and appreciate your comments.

Couple of points.



I found the 'forever' macro in this book. pp97



                The C programming Language

                By Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie.

                Published by Prentice-Hall in 1988

                ISBN 0-13-110362-8 (paperback)

                ISBN 0-13-110370-9

--  exerpt --

                Any name may be defined with any replacement text. For
example

                #define forever for (;;) /* infinite loop */

                defines a new word, forever, for an infinite loop.



Do you mean to say that the C gods K&R themselves published weird code?



Also if C programmers cannot cope with macros does not that imply they

are not truly C programmers.



Why does C have the ability to have such marco substitution if it is

not to be used.

Particularly if it helps avoid a potential bug that the compiler

does not report and only manifests at execution time (= for ==).



I believe I will have no problem interpreting the standard C

code or other C code with macros.



Frank





>*Subject: Re: First C Program

> *From: Barbara Morris <bmorris@xxxxxxxxxx>

> *Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2014 13:42:13 -0400

>

>Hi Frank, I have been thinking about the use of macros such as

>EQ, forever, NE etc, and I think you are doing yourself a disservice

>by using these macros as a beginner C programmer. Here are some of the
reasons:

>

>You will find it less easy to read "normal" C code if you don't get

>used to seeing *and quickly interpreting* things like != == for(;;)

>

>You will find it more difficult to incorporate code that you find on the
web.

>You will have to either change all the == and != to use your macros,

>or perhaps even worse, you will have a mixture of EQ and ==.

>

>You will not be able to post snippets of code to forums without

>replacing your macros. I wouldn't post weird code like that to any forum

>even with an explanation for what the macros mean.

>The discussion would almost certainly be more about the use of the macros
>than about whatever question you were trying to ask.
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