C++ Coding Standards: 101 Rules, Guidelines, and Best Practices

16. SummaryDiscussionExamplesExceptionsReferences...

TO_PUT_IT_BLUNTLY: Macros are the bluntest instrument of C and C++'s abstraction facilities, ravenous wolves in functions' clothing, hard to tame, marching to their own beat...

It's hard to find language that's colorful enough to describe macros, but we'll try. To quote from [Sutter04] §31: Macros are obnoxious, smelly, sheet-hogging bedfellows for...

Example: Passing a template instantiation to a macro. Macros barely understand C's parentheses and square brackets well enough to balance them. C++, however, defines a...

Macros remain the only solution for a few important tasks, such as #include guards (see Item 24), #ifdef and #if defined for conditional compilation, and...

[Boost] • [C99] • [Dewhurst03] §• [Lakos96] §2.• [Stroustrup94] §3.• [Stroustrup00] §1.6.1, §• [Sutter02] §• [Sutter04] §31 • [Sutter04a]...