__builtin_constant_p(3) - NetBSD Manual Pages

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__BUILTIN_CONSTANT_P(3) NetBSD Library Functions Manual__BUILTIN_CONSTANT_P(3)


NAME

     __builtin_constant_p -- GNU extension to determine compile time constants


SYNOPSIS

     int
     __builtin_constant_p(value);


DESCRIPTION

     The __builtin_constant_p() is a GNU extension for determining whether a
     value is known to be constant at compile time.  The function is closely
     related to the concept of ``constant folding'' used by modern optimizing
     compilers.

     If the value is known to be a compile-time constant, a value 1 is
     returned.  If __builtin_constant_p() returns 0, the value is not a com-
     pile-time constant in the sense that gcc(1) was unable to determine
     whether the value is constant or not.


EXAMPLES

     A typical example of the use of __builtin_constant_p() involves a situa-
     tion where it may be desirable to fold the computation if it involves a
     constant, but a function call is needed otherwise.  For instance,
     bswap16(3) is defined in NetBSD as:

           #define bswap16(x) \
                   (__builtin_constant_p((x)) ? \
                    __byte_swap_u16_constant(x) : __BYTE_SWAP_U16_VARIABLE(x))


SEE ALSO

     gcc(1), __builtin_object_size(3), __builtin_return_address(3)


CAVEATS

     This is a non-standard, compiler-specific extension.

NetBSD 6.1                     December 19, 2010                    NetBSD 6.1