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From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards,net.lang.c
Subject: Re: #define kinda stuff
Message-ID: <6583@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 11-Apr-86 14:00:32 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.6583
Posted: Fri Apr 11 14:00:32 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 11-Apr-86 14:00:32 EST
References: <1458@cwruecmp.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 23

>     Here's what I wanna do:
> 
> #define (-: /*
> #define :-) */
> 
>     Obviously I want to make (-: and :-) my comment delimiters.  One problem,
> though, is that the compiler or preprocessor (or whatever it is that does it)
> interprets most of the above as a comment containing '\n#define :-)'.  How
> do I get around this??? ...

You won't like the answer:  you can't.  Not portably, anyway.  Comment
processing is done before #define processing in most compilers.  You might
be able to find a compiler which would do what you want, but C compilers
in general won't.  The X3J11 drafts are quite explicit that comment stripping
precedes #define processing, so the situation is not going to get better.

To reiterate something that has been said before:  the C preprocessor is
not intended as a general-purpose macro processor.
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				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry