Mateusz Loskot

I have no pleasure continuing my macros are evil tales but the life of C++ programmer eagerly wants to writes add another chapter to the story. Today, it’s time to rant on Apple and its XCode.

One of Boost Geometry (aka GGL) users, Mark, reported that he can not compile his program using the library with GNU C++ compiler from XCode. The compiler throws mysterious complain of a very low-level nature of C++ programming language:

Expected unqualified-id before 'do' in
/usr/local/include/boost_1_42_0/boost/geometry/geometries/concepts/check.hpp

Thanks to follow-up by Stjepan we quickly know who to blame for that. It is XCode header AssertMacros.h. It even might be one of public headers from development package of XNU, the Mac OS X kernel, what’s even more fun.

What actually happens that causes the problem?

Boost Geometry defines function template for concept checking:

template <typename Geometry>
inline void check()
{
    detail::checker<Geometry, boost::is_const<Geometry>::type::value> c;
    boost::ignore_unused_variable_warning(c);
}

Apple XCode defines macro using exactly the same name as the function check. The C++ preprocessor, which operates before compiler, substitutes the name check with content of the macro. For the Boost Geometry function check it means that a pile of garbage is injected in place were the function name is expected:

template <typename Geometry>
inline void do { if ( __builtin_expect(!(), 0) ) { DebugAssert('?*?*',
0, "Third Party Client" ": " "", 0, 0, "/usr/local/include/boost/
geometry/geometries/concepts/check.hpp", 181, (void*)0); } } while ( 0 )
{
     detail::checker::type::value> c;
     boost::ignore_unused_variable_warning(c);
}

Obviously, it makes compiler to give up to instantiate the check function from the template and to compile it properly.

C/C++ macros are evil, however, not by design but by insanity of programmers. Every macro defined in a public C/C++ header, should be defined using as unique as possible, but still usable name. I wish Apple folks designed their C/C++ macros as unique as they make their hardware products, even if made in China eventually. This particular macro that caused the problems discussed here, could be named to APPLE_XNU_CHECK and life would be easier. Or, given the fact that almost 3000 files using these identifiers live in Boost C++ Libraries only, I probably should say: life would be more productive, efficient and cheaper.

By the way, it’s a known problem @ Boost and it looks Boost Folks are trying to figure out best solution. See ticket #2115 – Avoid bad Apple macros.

…to be continued