Prevent C preprocessor to do a specific macro subsitution

Question

How can I tell the preprocessor not to replace a specific macro?

The specific problem is the following: Windows header files define the GetMessage macro.

My C++ header files with my API have a GetMessage method. I do not want to rename my method. But when using the API on Windows, including windows.h replaces my GetMessage method call with GetMessageA.

Answer 1

have you tried just doing an

#undef GetMessage

or even

#ifdef GetMessage
#undef GetMessage
#endif

and then calling the windows GetMessageA or GetMessageW directly, whichever is appropriate.

you should know if you are using char* for wchar_t8..

(thanks don.neufeld)

Brian also says that Jus some useful info, you can also use the #pragma push_macro/pop_macro to push and pop macro definitions. This is great if you want to override a macro definition in a block of code:

#pragma push_macro("GetMessage")
#undef GetMessage

// Your GetMessage usage/definition here

#pragma pop_macro("GetMessage")

I suspect this is an MS specific feature though, so keep that in mind.