#define macro for debug printing in C?

Question

Trying to create a macro which can be used for print debug messages when DEBUG is defined, like the following pseudo code:

#define DEBUG 1
#define debug_prin         


        

Answer 1

For a portable (ISO C90) implementation, you could use double parentheses, like this;

#include 
#include 

#ifndef NDEBUG
#  define debug_print(msg) stderr_printf msg
#else
#  define debug_print(msg) (void)0
#endif

void
stderr_printf(const char *fmt, ...)
{
  va_list ap;
  va_start(ap, fmt);
  vfprintf(stderr, fmt, ap);
  va_end(ap);
}

int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
  debug_print(("argv[0] is %s, argc is %d\n", argv[0], argc));
  return 0;
}

or (hackish, wouldn't recommend it)

#include 

#define _ ,
#ifndef NDEBUG
#  define debug_print(msg) fprintf(stderr, msg)
#else
#  define debug_print(msg) (void)0
#endif

int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
  debug_print("argv[0] is %s, argc is %d"_ argv[0] _ argc);
  return 0;
}