Conditional Compilation

In the previous post I used conditional compilation to enable and disable debugging messages, yet I didn’t take the time (for those new to C/Objective-C) to explain how everything worked.

There are three ways to control compilation, the options are as follows:

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#if constant-expression
#ifdef identifier
#ifndef identifier

The first example checks for a non-zero value of the constant expression. The second example looks to see if ‘identifier’ has been defined, that is, if a #define statement has been declared for the identifier. The third, #ifndef is the opposite of #ifdef

Let’s look at a few code examples:

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#define DEBUG 1
#define MESSAGE_LEVEL 5
 
...
#if DEBUG
  something here
#else
  something else here
#endif
 
#if MESSAGE_LEVEL > 1
  printf("...");
#endif

The above example is pretty clear, if DEBUG is non-zero, include (compile) the code in the #if block, otherwise, include the code in the #else block. In the second example, a message is printed (or not) depending on the setting of MESSAGE_LEVEL.

#ifdef operates as follows:

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#define DEBUG
...
#ifdef DEBUG
 something here
#endif

In above example, the code ’something here’ would be compiled since DEBUG has been defined (using #define). If the line 1 above did not exist, the compiler would skip the code ’something here’.

#ifndef is often used in C (versus Objective-C) to prevent header files from being included more than once during compilation (something that can be challenging in a large project with many source files). For example:

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#ifndef DEBUG_HEADER
  #define DEBUG_HEADER
 
  // This will be seen just once by the compiler
  #include "header_file.h"
 
#endif

Although this is a common approach for pure C development, using #ifndef in this manner is not a requirement in Objective-C, as the #import directive ensures that files are imported (included) just once per compilation.

Conditional compilation can be quite useful to toggle code such as debugging on/off or otherwise conditional include code. To see an example, view the post Filename and Line Number with NSLog.