The most useful user-made C-macros (in GCC, also C99)?

Question

What C macro is in your opinion is the most useful? I have found the following one, which I use to do vector arithmetic in C:

#define v3_op_v3(x, op, y, z) {z[0]=x[0] op y[0]; \
                               z[1]=x[1] op y[1]; \
                               z[2]=x[2] op y[2];}

It works like that:

v3_op_v3(vectorA, +, vectorB, vectorC);
v3_op_v3(vectorE, *, vectorF, vectorJ);
...

Answer 1

#define IMPLIES(x, y) (!(x) || (y))

#define COMPARE(x, y) (((x) > (y)) - ((x) < (y)))
#define SIGN(x) COMPARE(x, 0)

#define ARRAY_SIZE(a) (sizeof(a) / sizeof(*a))

#define SWAP(x, y, T) do { T tmp = (x); (x) = (y); (y) = tmp; } while(0)
#define SORT2(a, b, T) do { if ((a) > (b)) SWAP((a), (b), T); } while (0)

#define SET(d, n, v) do{ size_t i_, n_; for (n_ = (n), i_ = 0; n_ > 0; --n_, ++i_) (d)[i_] = (v); } while(0)
#define ZERO(d, n) SET(d, n, 0)

And, of course, various MIN, MAX, ABS etc.

Note, BTW, that none of the above can be implemented by a function in C.

P.S. I would probably single out the above IMPLIES macro as one of the most useful ones. Its main purpose is to facilitate writing of more elegant and readable assertions, as in

void foo(int array[], int n) {
  assert(IMPLIES(n > 0, array != NULL));
  ...

Answer 2

The key point with C macros is to use them properly. In my mind there are three categories (not considering using them just to give descriptive names to constants)

1. As a shorthand for piece of codes one doesn't want to repeat
2. Provide a general use function
3. Modify the structure of the C language (apparently)

In the first case, your macro will live just within your program (usually just a file) so you can use macros like the one you have posted that is not protected against double evaluation of parameters and uses {...}; (potentially dangerous!).

In the second case (and even more in the third) you need to be extremely careful that your macros behave correctly as if they were real C constructs.

The macro you posted from GCC (min and max) is an example of this, they use the global variables _a and _b to avoid the risk of double evaluation (like in max(x++,y++)) (well, they use GCC extensions but the concept is the same).

I like using macros where it helps to make things more clear but they are a sharp tool! Probably that's what gave them such a bad reputation, I think they are a very useful tool and C would have been much poorer if they were not present.

I see others have provided examples of point 2 (macros as functions), let me give an example of creating a new C construct: the Finite state machine. (I've already posted this on SO but I can't seem to be able to find it)

 #define FSM            for(;;)
 #define STATE(x)       x##_s 
 #define NEXTSTATE(x)   goto x##_s

that you use this way:

 FSM {
    STATE(s1):
      ... do stuff ...
      NEXTSTATE(s2);

    STATE(s2):
      ... do stuff ...
      if (k<0) NEXTSTATE(s2); 
      /* fallthrough as the switch() cases */

    STATE(s3):
      ... final stuff ...
      break;  /* Exit from the FSM */
 } 

You can add variation on this theme to get the flavour of FSM you need.

Someone may not like this example but I find it perfect to demonstrate how simple macros can make your code more legible and expressive.

Answer 3

for-each loop in C99:

#define foreach(item, array) \
    for(int keep=1, \
            count=0,\
            size=sizeof (array)/sizeof *(array); \
        keep && count != size; \
        keep = !keep, count++) \
      for(item = (array)+count; keep; keep = !keep)

int main() {
  int a[] = { 1, 2, 3 };
  int sum = 0;
  foreach(int const* c, a)
    sum += *c;
  printf("sum = %d\n", sum);

  // multi-dim array
  int a1[][2] = { { 1, 2 }, { 3, 4 } };
  foreach(int (*c1)[2], a1)
    foreach(int *c2, *c1) 
      printf("c2 = %d\n", *c2);
}

Answer 4

If you need to define data multiple times in different contexts, macros can help you avoid have to relist the same thing multiple times.

For example, lets say you want to define an enum of colors and an enum-to-string function, rather then list all the colors twice, you could create a file of the colors (colors.def):

c(red)
c(blue)
c(green)
c(yellow)
c(brown)

Now you can in your c file you can define your enum and your string conversion function:

enum {
#define c(color) color,
# include "colors.def"
#undef c
};

const char *
color_to_string(enum color col)
{
    static const char *colors[] = {
#define c(color) #color,
# include "colors.def"
#undef c
    };
    return (colors[col]);
};

Answer 5

#if defined NDEBUG
    #define TRACE( format, ... )
#else
    #define TRACE( format, ... )   printf( "%s::%s(%d)" format, __FILE__, __FUNCTION__,  __LINE__, __VA_ARGS__ )
#endif

Note that the lack of a comma between "%s::%s(%d)" and format is deliberate. It prints a formatted string with source location prepended. I work in real-time embedded systems so often I also include a timestamp in the output as well.

Answer 6

Foreach loop for GCC, specifically C99 with GNU Extensions. Works with strings and arrays. Dynamically allocated arrays can be used by casting them to a pointer to an array, and then dereferencing them.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdbool.h>

#define FOREACH_COMP(INDEX, ARRAY, ARRAY_TYPE, SIZE) \
  __extension__ \
  ({ \
    bool ret = 0; \
    if (__builtin_types_compatible_p (const char*, ARRAY_TYPE)) \
      ret = INDEX < strlen ((const char*)ARRAY); \
    else \
      ret = INDEX < SIZE; \
    ret; \
  })

#define FOREACH_ELEM(INDEX, ARRAY, TYPE) \
  __extension__ \
  ({ \
    TYPE *tmp_array_ = ARRAY; \
    &tmp_array_[INDEX]; \
  })

#define FOREACH(VAR, ARRAY) \
for (void *array_ = (void*)(ARRAY); array_; array_ = 0) \
for (size_t i_ = 0; i_ && array_ && FOREACH_COMP (i_, array_, \
                                    __typeof__ (ARRAY), \
                                    sizeof (ARRAY) / sizeof ((ARRAY)[0])); \
                                    i_++) \
for (bool b_ = 1; b_; (b_) ? array_ = 0 : 0, b_ = 0) \
for (VAR = FOREACH_ELEM (i_, array_, __typeof__ ((ARRAY)[0])); b_; b_ = 0)

/* example's */
int
main (int argc, char **argv)
{
  int array[10];
  /* initialize the array */
  int i = 0;
  FOREACH (int *x, array)
    {
      *x = i;
      ++i;
    }

  char *str = "hello, world!";
  FOREACH (char *c, str)
    printf ("%c\n", *c);

  /* Use a cast for dynamically allocated arrays */
  int *dynamic = malloc (sizeof (int) * 10);
  for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
    dynamic[i] = i;

  FOREACH (int *i, *(int(*)[10])(dynamic))
    printf ("%d\n", *i);

  return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

This code has been tested to work with GCC, ICC and Clang on GNU/Linux.

Lambda expressions (GCC only)

#define lambda(return_type, ...) \
  __extension__ \
  ({ \
    return_type __fn__ __VA_ARGS__ \
    __fn__; \
  })

int
main (int argc, char **argv)
{
  int (*max) (int, int) = 
    lambda (int, (int x, int y) { return x > y ? x : y; });
  return max (1, 2);
}

Answer 7

Someone else mentioned container_of(), but didn't provide an explanation for this really handy macro. Let's say you have a struct that looks like this:

struct thing {
    int a;
    int b;
};

Now if we have a pointer to b, we can use container_of() to get a pointer to thing in a type safe fashion:

int *bp = ...;
struct thing *t = container_of(bp, struct thing, b);

This is useful in creating abstract data structures. For example, rather than taking the approach queue.h takes for creating things like SLIST (tons of crazy macros for every operation), you can now write an slist implementation that looks something like this:

struct slist_el {
    struct slist_el *next;
};

struct slist_head {
    struct slist_el *first;
};

void
slist_insert_head(struct slist_head *head, struct slist_el *el)
{
    el->next = head->first;
    head->first = el;
}

struct slist_el
slist_pop_head(struct slist_head *head)
{
    struct slist_el *el;

    if (head->first == NULL)
        return NULL;

    el = head->first;
    head->first = el->next;
    return (el);   
}

Which is not crazy macro code. It will give good compiler line-numbers on errors and works nice with the debugger. It's also fairly typesafe, except for cases where structs use multiple types (eg if we allowed struct color in the below example to be on more linked lists than just the colors one).

Users can now use your library like this:

struct colors {
    int r;
    int g;
    int b;
    struct slist_el colors;
};

struct *color = malloc(sizeof(struct person));
color->r = 255;
color->g = 0;
color->b = 0;
slist_insert_head(color_stack, &color->colors);
...
el = slist_pop_head(color_stack);
color = el == NULL ? NULL : container_of(el, struct color, colors);

Answer 8

#define COLUMNS(S,E) [ (E) - (S) + 1 ]


struct 
{
    char firstName COLUMNS ( 1, 20);
    char LastName  COLUMNS (21, 40);
    char ssn       COLUMNS (41, 49);
}

Save yourself some error prone counting

Answer 9

This one is from linux kernel (gcc specific):

#define container_of(ptr, type, member) ({                  \
const typeof( ((type *)0)->member ) *__mptr = (ptr);    \
    (type *)( (char *)__mptr - offsetof(type,member) ); })

Another missing from other answers:

#define LSB(x) ((x) ^ ((x) - 1) & (x))   // least significant bit

Answer 10

I also like this one:

#define COMPARE_FLOATS(a,b,epsilon) (fabs(a - b) <= epsilon * fabs(a))

And how you macros-haters do fair floating-point comparisons?

Answer 11

Just the standard ones:

#define LENGTH(array) (sizeof(array) / sizeof (array[0]))
#define QUOTE(name) #name
#define STR(name) QUOTE(name)

but there's nothing too spiffy there.

Answer 12

#define kroundup32(x) (--(x), (x)|=(x)>>1, (x)|=(x)>>2, (x)|=(x)>>4, (x)|=(x)>>8, (x)|=(x)>>16, ++(x))

Find the closest 32bit unsigned integer that is larger than x. I use this to double the size of arrays (i.e. the high-water mark).

Answer 13

also multi-type Minimum and Maximum like that

//NOTE: GCC extension !
#define max(a,b) ({typeof (a) _a=(a); typeof (b) _b=(b); _a > _b ? _a:_b; })
#define min(a,b) ({typeof (a) _a=(a); typeof (b) _b=(b); _a < _b ? _a:_b; })

Answer 14

Checking whether a floating point x is Not A Number:

#define ISNAN(x) ((x) != (x))

Answer 15

Pack bytes,words,dwords into words,dwords and qwords:

#define ULONGLONG unsigned __int64
#define MAKEWORD(h,l) ((unsigned short) ((h) << 8)) | (l)
#define MAKEDWORD(h,l) ((DWORD) ((h) << 16)) | (l)
#define MAKEQWORD(h,l) ((ULONGLONG)((h) << 32)) | (l) 

Parenthesizing arguments it's always a good practice to avoid side-effects on expansion.

Answer 16

This one is awesome:

#define NEW(type, n) ( (type *) malloc(1 + (n) * sizeof(type)) )

And I use it like:

object = NEW(object_type, 1);

Answer 17

One (of the very few) that I use regularly is a macro to declare an argument or variable as unused. The most compatible solution to note this (IMHO) varies by compiler.

Answer 18

TRUE and FALSE seem to be popular.