Foreach Macro on Macros Arguments

In the world of programming, macros provide a convenient way to perform repetitive tasks. However, attempting to create a macro that iterates over the arguments of another macro can lead to challenges. Let's explore how to overcome this hurdle and delve into the realm of recursive macros.

Recursive macros can be used to traverse the list of arguments passed to a macro. However, this approach can be error-prone as it might result in infinite recursion. To address this, we introduce a special end marker () to indicate the end of the argument list.

The MAP macro serves as the entry point for the recursive process. It initializes the end marker and applies the user-defined operation to the first argument. The MAP_NEXT macro examines each subsequent argument and decides whether to continue the recursion or terminate it.

The recursive MAP0 and MAP1 macros are responsible for iterating through the argument list. MAP0 applies the operation to the current argument and calls itself with the next argument, while MAP1 checks the remaining arguments and either continues the recursion or returns the end marker.

To use the MAP macro effectively, it's important to define the end marker () and ensure it's placed as the last argument in the list. By providing a user-defined operation, you can perform arbitrary tasks on each macro argument.

As an example, let's define a PRINT macro that prints a macro argument and its value:

#define PRINT(a) printf(#a ": %d", a)

Using the MAP macro, we can apply PRINT to a list of macro arguments:

MAP(PRINT, a, b, c)

This will result in output similar to:

a: 1
b: 3
c: 0

Through the power of recursive macros, we've effectively created a way to iterate over macro arguments, opening up new possibilities for dynamic and flexible code generation.