# character (in string generation ?)

[John E]

I found this code in a header file here... it starts with a declaration of various 'DebugBit' types, followed by the declaration for a function which prints out some debug text:-

namespace DEBUG {
	extern DebugBits State;
	extern DebugBits Properties;
	extern DebugBits Name;
	extern DebugBits Locale;

	// and various others...

	}

void debug_print (const char* prefix, std::string str);

These get followed by a preprocessor directive for using the above:-

#define DEBUG_TRACE(bits, str) { debug_print (# bits, str); }

And later in the code, it tends to get used something like this:-

DEBUG_TRACE (DEBUG::State, "whatever");

I think that the intention of # bits is maybe to convert parameter 1 from an enumeration into the equivalent string - so DEBUG::State would get converted to the string "Debug::State". This apparently works for other compilers but MSVC gives me C2014 "preprocessor command must start as first nonwhite space"

Does this not work in MSVC or am I misunderstanding something

[VictorN]

Hi John,
did you try to remove the space between # and bits ?

[John E]

Thanks Victor. I tried #bits and it worked. So I then returned to # bits and that now works too!! There must've been some weird character lurking there that wasn't visible.