Interpreting a macro

[Chris Saunders]

Hope this question is appropriate here.
I'm writing an interface to some C code for the language Eiffel.
I have come across this macro and am having difficuly interpreting
what it returns:

#define D3DDECL_END() {0xFF,0,D3DDECLTYPE_UNUSED, 0,0,0}

Could someone help?

Regards
Chris Saunders

 

[pete]

Hope this question is appropriate here.
I'm writing an interface to some C code for the language Eiffel.
I have come across this macro and am having difficuly interpreting
what it returns:

#define D3DDECL_END() {0xFF,0,D3DDECLTYPE_UNUSED, 0,0,0}

My guess is that it is an initializer for an aggregate type.

 

[Chris Saunders]

Yes it is supposed to initialize an element of an array.
What I'm trying to figure out is if it returns a pointer or
some other type.

Oh, and thanks for the reply.

Regards
Chris Saunders

 

[Antonio Contreras]

Yes it is supposed to initialize an element of an array.
What I'm trying to figure out is if it returns a pointer or
some other type.

Oh, and thanks for the reply.

Regards
Chris Saunders

In first place. Please, don't top-post, it makes your answer more
difficult to read. In your defense, at least you quoted the message you
were replying to.

Judging by what you say, it seems to me that you don't really
understand how macros work. A macro does not "return" a value, not in
the sense that a function returns a value.

Prior to the actual compilation, the preprocessor substitutes (expands)
all macros. In your case if you had something like :

char a[6] = D3DDECL_END();

the preprocessor will expand de macro and generate the code:

char a[6] = {0xFF,0,D3DDECLTYPE_UNUSED, 0,0,0};

Then D3DDECLTYPE_UNUSED is with all probability another macro that
needs to be expanded before the code is actually passed to the
compiler.

HTH