Linxutopia - Thinking in C++ - 3: The C in C++ - Turning variables and expressions into string

Thinking in C++
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Turning variables and expressions into string s

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When writing debugging code, it is tedious to write print expressions consisting of a character array containing the variable name, followed by the variable. Fortunately, Standard C includes the stringize operator ‘#’, which was used earlier in this chapter. When you put a # before an argument in a preprocessor macro, the preprocessor turns that argument into a character array. This, combined with the fact that character arrays with no intervening punctuation are concatenated into a single character array, allows you to make a very convenient macro for printing the values of variables during debugging:

#define PR(x) cout << #x " = " << x << "\n";

If you print the variable a by calling the macro PR(a), it will have the same effect as the code:

cout << "a = " << a << "\n";

This same process works with entire expressions. The following program uses a macro to create a shorthand that prints the stringized expression and then evaluates the expression and prints the result:

//: C03:StringizingExpressions.cpp
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

#define P(A) cout << #A << ": " << (A) << endl;

int main() {
  int a = 1, b = 2, c = 3;
  P(a); P(b); P(c);
  P(a + b);
  P((c - a)/b);
} ///:~

You can see how a technique like this can quickly become indispensable, especially if you have no debugger (or must use multiple development environments). You can also insert an #ifdef to cause P(A) to be defined as “nothing” when you want to strip out debugging.

Thinking in C++
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Turning variables and expressions into strings

Turning variables and expressions into string s