symbolic constants

Question

#include<conio.h>
#include<stdio.h>
#define abc 7

int main()
{

int abc=1;

printf("%d",abc);

getch();

return 0;
}

why this program is giving compile time error

Answer 1

You're assigning 7=1 which is invalid. Since you've defined abc to be 7, the preprocessor translates the line:

int abc=1;

to:

int 7=1;

Which is a syntax error in C (my gcc says syntax error before numeric constant).

Answer 2

The C preprocessor does a blind replacement of abc with 7 resulting in:

int 7=1;

which clearly is an error.

Answer 3

When the preprocessor replaces abc with 7, the following line becomes invalid:

int 7=1;

An identifier in C, can't be just a number.

Answer 4

You define abc as 7.

Then int abc=1 is transformed into int 7=1 which is absurd.

Why are you doing this?

Answer 5

You declare "abc" macro value as 7 . So if again include the macro name as variable, it will give error.

consider the following

abc value is 7. So it will treated as 7=1. So that it will give error.