<html lang="en"> <head> <title>Newlines in Arguments - The C Preprocessor</title> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html"> <meta name="description" content="The C Preprocessor"> <meta name="generator" content="makeinfo 4.13"> <link title="Top" rel="start" href="index.html#Top"> <link rel="up" href="Macro-Pitfalls.html#Macro-Pitfalls" title="Macro Pitfalls"> <link rel="prev" href="Argument-Prescan.html#Argument-Prescan" title="Argument Prescan"> <link href="http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/" rel="generator-home" title="Texinfo Homepage"> <!-- Copyright (C) 1987-2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''. This manual contains no Invariant Sections. The Front-Cover Texts are (a) (see below), and the Back-Cover Texts are (b) (see below). (a) The FSF's Front-Cover Text is: A GNU Manual (b) The FSF's Back-Cover Text is: You have freedom to copy and modify this GNU Manual, like GNU software. Copies published by the Free Software Foundation raise funds for GNU development. --> <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css"> <style type="text/css"><!-- pre.display { font-family:inherit } pre.format { font-family:inherit } pre.smalldisplay { font-family:inherit; font-size:smaller } pre.smallformat { font-family:inherit; font-size:smaller } pre.smallexample { font-size:smaller } pre.smalllisp { font-size:smaller } span.sc { font-variant:small-caps } span.roman { font-family:serif; font-weight:normal; } span.sansserif { font-family:sans-serif; font-weight:normal; } --></style> </head> <body> <div class="node"> <a name="Newlines-in-Arguments"></a> <p> Previous: <a rel="previous" accesskey="p" href="Argument-Prescan.html#Argument-Prescan">Argument Prescan</a>, Up: <a rel="up" accesskey="u" href="Macro-Pitfalls.html#Macro-Pitfalls">Macro Pitfalls</a> <hr> </div> <h4 class="subsection">3.10.7 Newlines in Arguments</h4> <p><a name="index-newlines-in-macro-arguments-82"></a> The invocation of a function-like macro can extend over many logical lines. However, in the present implementation, the entire expansion comes out on one line. Thus line numbers emitted by the compiler or debugger refer to the line the invocation started on, which might be different to the line containing the argument causing the problem. <p>Here is an example illustrating this: <pre class="smallexample"> #define ignore_second_arg(a,b,c) a; c ignore_second_arg (foo (), ignored (), syntax error); </pre> <p class="noindent">The syntax error triggered by the tokens <code>syntax error</code> results in an error message citing line three—the line of ignore_second_arg— even though the problematic code comes from line five. <p>We consider this a bug, and intend to fix it in the near future. </body></html>