What are some tricks I can use with macros?

Question

In our legacy code, as well as our modern code, we use macros to perform nifty solutions like code generations, etc. And we make use of both the # and ## operators.

I am curious how other developers use macros to do cool things, if they use them at all.

Answer 1

In C, it's common to define macros that do some stuff getting the verbatim argument, and at the same time define functions to be able to get the address of it transparently.

// could evaluate at compile time if __builtin_sin gets
// special treatment by the compiler
#define sin(x) __builtin_sin(x)

// parentheses avoid substitution by the macro
double (sin)(double arg) {
    return sin(arg); // uses the macro
}

int main() {
    // uses the macro
    printf("%f\n", sin(3.14));

    // uses the function
    double (*x)(double) = &sin;

    // uses the function
    printf("%f\n", (sin)(3.14));
}