I was reading about __FUNCTION__
/ __func__
in C/C++ (they are used to print the name of the function in which they are used). Every place I read they said that these are macros and are replaced at preprocessing time. So, I investigated this by seeing the preprocessed output using command gcc -E prog.c
. But I saw that neither __func__
nor __FUNCTION__
were replaced by the preprocessor by the function name.
So, is it a macro? If not, what is it and how is it implemented?
EDIT
Even tried cpp prog.c
. But still not replaced.
Also __FILE__, __LINE__, and __FUNCTION__ usage in C++ this post says that it never affects performance. Please clarify.
They are implemented as (and are) "magic variables". The manual says:
GCC provides three magic variables that hold the name of the current function, as a string. The first of these is
__func__
, which is part of the C99 standard:The identifier
__func__
is implicitly declared by the translator as if, immediately following the opening brace of each function definition, the declarationstatic const char __func__[] = "function-name";
appeared, where
function-name
is the name of the lexically-enclosing function. This name is the unadorned name of the function.
They typically cannot be implemented as preprocessor macros; the preprocessor doesn't parse function scopes. Of course a preprocessor could be made to understand enough of the syntax to know where functions begin and end, but typically they're not operating at that level.
__func__
is essentially a pre-defined variable, not a macro. Where __FUNCTION__
will be expanded, __func__
will not, and will be used as if you defined the following in your function:
static const char __func__[] = "function-name";
or
static const char __func__[] = __FUNCTION__;
Please refer to:
The intent of
__func__
is similar to__FUNCTION__
, but the delivery is different.
http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/WG21/docs/papers/2004/n1642.html
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