Can anybody tell me what is the difference between macros and constants?
anandi.sa 0 Newbie Poster
Ancient Dragon 5,243 Achieved Level 70 Team Colleague Featured Poster
A macro is something that is expanded by the compiler's preprocessor. A constant is like a normal variable but whose value can not be changed, nor is a constant affected by the preprocessor.
chaitalichari 0 Newbie Poster
macro's cannot have a data type wherein constant must have a data type.
articles 0 Newbie Poster
Macros definition is automatically expand by the compiler..
It works just like functions..
There are no. of benefits using macros over constant...
for ex- you have used the constant pi many times in your program and now you want to change the value of pi.. with macros you have to change only where you define the value but with constants you have to change everywhere in the program..
sarehu 84 Posting Whiz in Training
This isn't really a general computer science question, it's more of a language-specific one. The definition of 'macro' and 'constant' varies from language to language. In some, constants aren't constants, and in others, macros aren't macros.
And in some, macros must "have a data type" and in some, constants don't have to.
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