Quote:Original post by MBrand2
While studying tutorials and books I have come across things like #define Num 100 I don't know what #define is, but it is fairly easy to figure out that it does something similar to int Num = 100;. So what is the advantage to using #define over declaring an int?

It is usually used in c, where in the standard that most compilers have implemented (AFAIK), you cannot use a variable as an array size. The #define gives what would be an anonymus magic number some context. I gather that the latest version of C allows for variables to be used as array sizes.

In c++, you would prefer to use a const int, or const float/whatever, where you might be have tempted to use a #define in c. Because #defines are dealth with during preprocessing, they cannot obey scope, and defines inside namespaces, etc won't work quite as intended.

I should mention the "evil" macro is also a #define construct
something of the form:

#define min(x,y) (((x)<(y))?(x):(y))

will return the minimum of any two constructs that support the < operator. (this can also be made with a template based macro too)
Since the code on the right side replaces the code on the left side, your code:
min(1,2) gets replaced with (((1)<(2))?(1):(2)) wich may be reduced later by the compiler, but maybe not.

#define is also useful with other preprocessor constucts.
This includes the standard header gaurds:
#ifndef MY_HEADER_H
#define MY_HEADER_H
....
#endif

but can help you at compile time choose code in your project aswell.

Since the #ifdef and #endif is evaluated at compile time, your code is only compiled into the final exe if you #define USE_LOGGER.
If you comment out that #define, then all of a sudden the logging code is not even compiled.
where

means that the if is evaluated at every call to logger. So the #defines can save you computation time, since
the compiler will probably optomize out the empty function, where it will not optomise out the function with the regular if statement.
So it completely removes the overhead of the logger function.

Quote:Original post by MBrand2
... So what is the advantage to using #define over declaring an int?

There is none. People still use it mostly out of habit -- there was no good alternative until a few years ago.

Except for a few situations, #define should generally be avoided. It works by substituting text, so it is a very good source of bugs, and it makes debugging more difficult.

One situation where it is useful is enabling and disabling code (as demonstrated by KulSeran), or when doing text tricks such as concatenating symbols.

It is occasionally useful for other things, such as turning debugging on and off :

#define DEBUG

(...)

#ifdef DEBUG
cout << "Debugging stuff" << endl
#endif

For production, you can comment out the define, and your exe won't be cluttered with a bunch of if statements, as it would if you had used a bool.