[vlc-devel] Macros & IDE

[Pierre d'Herbemont]

On Nov 25, 2007, at 10:40 AM, Jean-Paul Saman wrote:

> Jean-Baptiste Kempf wrote:
>> On Sun, Nov 25, 2007, Guy Paddock wrote :
>>> Quick question: why does the VLC source use macros so much? I  
>>> mean, I
>>> understand their use for ensuring unique function names in case
>>> modules are compiled-in or built separately, but IMO they seem to be
>>> overused. Personally, I like to avoid macros like the plague because
>>> they're not context-safe, but that's just me.

To me;,there are clearly some macro abuses in VLC. Feel free to clean  
them.
However some macro uses are legitimate and needed, especially to  
implement VLC's object abstraction.

>>>
>> I am interested to know also why we use huge #defines when we could  
>> do
>> enum. Is this better code-size wise ? Faster ?
>
> Defines are resolved at compile time, while enums are runtime used.


I think that defines have some nifty advantages, such as:
- finer grain control for bitmask
- possibility to #ifdef them.
This is needed in some very particular cases.

But enum provide a way better abstraction to define constants, with  
much more advantages over #defines in most cases: The compiler can,  
optimize enum uses and most importantly type check and error detect.  
This error checking is by itself sufficient to largely prefer enum  
where possible.

We do have some non-optimal uses of #define.

So, feel free to patch that (IMO).

Pierre.