5. Diagnostics

The directive `#error' causes the preprocessor to report a fatal error. The tokens forming the rest of the line following `#error' are used as the error message.

You would use `#error' inside of a conditional that detects a combination of parameters which you know the program does not properly support. For example, if you know that the program will not run properly on a VAX, you might write

#ifdef __vax__ #error "Won't work on VAXen. See comments at get_last_object." #endif

If you have several configuration parameters that must be set up by the installation in a consistent way, you can use conditionals to detect an inconsistency and report it with `#error'. For example,

#if !defined(UNALIGNED_INT_ASM_OP) && defined(DWARF2_DEBUGGING_INFO) #error "DWARF2_DEBUGGING_INFO requires UNALIGNED_INT_ASM_OP." #endif

The directive `#warning' is like `#error', but causes the preprocessor to issue a warning and continue preprocessing. The tokens following `#warning' are used as the warning message.

You might use `#warning' in obsolete header files, with a message directing the user to the header file which should be used instead.

Neither `#error' nor `#warning' macro-expands its argument. Internal whitespace sequences are each replaced with a single space. The line must consist of complete tokens. It is wisest to make the argument of these directives be a single string constant; this avoids problems with apostrophes and the like.