Why does the C preprocessor consider enum values as equal?

Question

Why does the std::cout line in the following code run even though A and B are different?

#include 

en         


        

Answer 1

There are no macros called A or B, so on your #if line, A and B get replaced by 0, so you actually have:

enum T { A = 1, B = 2 };

int main() {
#if (0 == 0)
    std::cout << A << B;
#endif
}

The preprocessor runs before the compiler knows anything about your enum. The preprocessor only knows about macros (#define).