Re: Strange C constructs

V> My selfmade C preprocessor stumbled across a strange construct in one of the
V> Windows headers. Now I would like to know whether this really makes sense:


V> #define something /##/


V> I can imagine that the intended effect is the creation of an comment
V> (// ...) in the source code, but IMO this is not achievable in
V> accordance to any C/C++ standard. An traditional preprocessor doesn't
V> recognize the ## operator, and newer preprocessors have to treat
V> comments before, or during, the tokenization, whereas the ## operator
V> is executing after tokenization, and there exists no valid
V> preprocessor token for "//".


V> Is this construct really a stupid Microsoft extension, intended to prevent the
V> compilation of Windows code with other compilers, or did I miss something in
V> the newer C specs?


The newest C99 standard introduces single line comments (//...), but
it can be formed in such a way using macro substitution and glueing.
It is shown in the following example stolen from the standard:


      #define glue(x,y) x##y
      glue(/,/) k(); // syntax error, not comment


K&R and previous C standard doesn't have such type of comment.
So this code (AFAIK it is located in WTypes.h) is completely illegal
in C and intended for use with brain-damadged Microsoft compilers.


V> typedef int (procname)(int arg);


V> According to K&R only /pointers/ to procedure-types can be constructed. Does
V> there exist newer specs which allow to typedef procedures themselves?


According to C99 standard this is legal, though you can't use this
typename (procname in this case) to define a function:


      procname f { return 0; } // illegal
      procname *f; // ok - f is a pointer to function


viz

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