Swallowing the Semicolon

3.10.3 Swallowing the Semicolon

Often it is desirable to define a macro that expands into a compound statement. Consider, for example, the following macro, that advances a pointer (the argument p says where to find it) across whitespace characters:

#define SKIP_SPACES(p, limit)  \
{ char *lim = (limit);         \
  while (p < lim) {            \
    if (*p++ != ' ') {         \
      p--; break; }}}

Here backslash-newline is used to split the macro definition, which must be a single logical line, so that it resembles the way such code would be laid out if not part of a macro definition.

A call to this macro might be SKIP_SPACES (p, lim). Strictly speaking, the call expands to a compound statement, which is a complete statement with no need for a semicolon to end it. However, since it looks like a function call, it minimizes confusio