Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!usc!aero!aerospace.aero.org!lmiller
From: lmiller@aerospace.aero.org (Lawrence H. Miller)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: C's Limited Macro Capabilities
Message-ID: <62664@aerospace.AERO.ORG>
Date: 4 Dec 89 19:54:31 GMT
References: <69517@psuecl.bitnet>
Sender: news@aerospace.aero.org
Reply-To: lmiller@batcomputer.UUCP (Lawrence H. Miller)
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA
Lines: 20

In article <69517@psuecl.bitnet> bpm@psuecl.bitnet (Brian Moquin) writes:

	That he thinks macros like this would be useful:

>        #define cast(flag,x)    #if flag=='I' \
>                                        ((int)(x)) \
>                                #elif flag=='F' \
>                                        ((float)(x)) \
>                                #endif
>This is not legal C, but if it were I think it would enhance the power
>of macro expansions significantly.  Thoughts?


But for each such example, you can easily write a macro that
is legal.  Why not just have your macro do what you really
want, which is casting an expression to a type:

#define cast(type,x)		((type)(x))

Larry Miller