How to elegantly implement a series of functions in different type versions using pure C?

Question

I want to write several functions that are only different in the types of arguments. I know C++ has template to handle this problem well (not very well yet thou

Answer 1

If you think using the C preprocessor is awkward and hard to debug, how about writing a script in some more convenient language to generate a .c file you can #include? Most modern scripting languages come with some sort of template engine, but since your requirements are simple enough, it doesn't have to be any more complex than this;

#/bin/sh
for t in int double char mytype; do
    cat <<____HERE
    $t add_$t ($t a, $t b) {
        return (a + b);
    }
____HERE
done >generated.c

The resulting file will be plain-jane straightforward C which should be reasonably simple to debug and change.