Re: preceding (void) as a do-nothing

From:
daniel.kruegler@googlemail.com
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++.moderated
Date:
Wed, 10 Dec 2008 09:18:14 CST
Message-ID:
<3328c04c-b4ca-42ae-b9db-38d95a3ee197@r27g2000vbp.googlegroups.com>
On 10 Dez., 03:47, mtall....@gmail.com wrote:

Is the code below valid C++ ? While it compiles under gcc 4.3, I'm
not sure whether "(void)(arg1, arg2)" is a portable way to get the
functionality of "do nothing and ignore all arguments".

#if defined(DO_DEBUG)
  #define debug_print do_print
#else
  #define debug_print (void)
#endif

inline void do_print(int a, int b)
  {
  std::cout << a << b << std::endl;
  }

int main(int argc, char** argv)
  {
  debug_print(1,2);
  return 0;
  }


Except for the missing include's to make the
std::cout definition and corresponding operator<<
overloads available, this program is well-formed.

But I don't think that it realizes in general what
you want. Any expression with side-effects on the
right hand side of debug_print will be evaluated,
before the result is evaluated, just consider the
following adaption of your snippet:

#include <iostream>
#include <ostream>

#if defined(DO_DEBUG)
  #define debug_print do_print
#else
  #define debug_print (void)
#endif

inline void do_print(int a, int b)
  {
  std::cout << a << b << std::endl;
  }

int get2() {
  std::cout << "get2 has been called" << std::endl;
  return 2;
}

int main(int argc, char** argv)
  {
  debug_print(1, get2());
  return 0;
  }

This will print "get2 has been called" even, even if
DO_DEBUG is not #define'd.

HTH & Greetings from Bremen,

Daniel Kr?gler

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