The role of #ifdef and #ifndef

c-preprocessor
alka pandey picture alka pandey · Sep 19, 2010 · Viewed 172.4k times · Source 
#define one 0
#ifdef one
printf("one is defined ");
#ifndef one
printf("one is not defined ");

In this what is the role of #ifdef and #ifndef, and what's the output?

Answer

paxdiablo picture paxdiablo · Sep 19, 2010

Text inside an ifdef/endif or ifndef/endif pair will be left in or removed by the pre-processor depending on the condition. ifdef means "if the following is defined" while ifndef means "if the following is not defined".

So:

#define one 0
#ifdef one
    printf("one is defined ");
#endif
#ifndef one
    printf("one is not defined ");
#endif

is equivalent to:

printf("one is defined ");

since one is defined so the ifdef is true and the ifndef is false. It doesn't matter what it's defined as. A similar (better in my opinion) piece of code to that would be:

#define one 0
#ifdef one
    printf("one is defined ");
#else
    printf("one is not defined ");
#endif

since that specifies the intent more clearly in this particular situation.

In your particular case, the text after the ifdef is not removed since one is defined. The text after the ifndef is removed for the same reason. There will need to be two closing endif lines at some point and the first will cause lines to start being included again, as follows:

     #define one 0
+--- #ifdef one
|    printf("one is defined ");     // Everything in here is included.
| +- #ifndef one
| |  printf("one is not defined "); // Everything in here is excluded.
| |  :
| +- #endif
|    :                              // Everything in here is included again.
+--- #endif

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