#define or const?

[Vber]

What's better?
and why?

Thanks

[orbitz]

Asking which is better is not a very good question. They have their place depending on the situation.

I use #defines more than consts, but that is me. I think const can get confusing depending on there you place it.

But one place const can be used where defines can't (and this is where I get almost all of my const usage) is in functions where I do not want the incoming variable to be modified (in a function). Look at the prototype for things liek strcat, printf, etc..

[Mister C]

you can use either #define or const in C. But traditionally and the way I still see it taught is:

#define -C const- C++

[moi]

const is more correct in either language imo. defines can be very dangerous. but, they do have their place

[Vber]

Thanks.

[orbitz]

Also, it depend on where you want your thing handled. As I recalle defines are handled in preprocessor, and consts during runtime.

For macros, i always equate them to inline functions in my head and they might cause an executable to be large, depending on how much you use it and such. But that is a bit more complicated, and better off not even used.

[Dave_Sinkula]

Here are several threads with additional thoughts on this matter.