displaying #define values in C

Question

I have a series of #defines from a library file header of this sort:

typedef int Lib_error;   

#define   LIB_ERROR_A      ((Lib_error) 0x0000) 
#define   LIB_ER         


        

Answer 1

There isn't a simple or automatic way to do it. You have to generate the list of numbers and names yourself, and provide a lookup function to map between number and name.

You might take a look at the ideas in the blog post 'Enums, Strings and Laziness'; it has some ideas that might help you. (That's closely related to the X-Macros at Dr Dobbs mentioned by Oli Charlesworth; the article there claims the technique goes back to the 60s, albeit that it must have been in a language other than C since C didn't exist back then.)