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Is there a clean way to prevent windows.h from creating a near & far macro?
What's the point of these two defines in Windef.h?
#define far /* nothing */
#define near /* nothing */
I know it has to do with near and far pointers and the fact they're no longer used, but, is it safe to #undef them, so I can use near and far as function and variable names in my code?
Or, should I simply avoid it and never use near and far as identifiers?
Although undefining this empty macros is actually harmless, I would definitely avoid to reuse some well-known macro... It's like using goto as a variable name just because you are not using it as a keyword...
Don't reuse them. The last thing you need is to have to repeatedly explain to people that they aren't the old-school ornaments.
If it is critical to your app, you might consider using capitalized versions (since identifiers are case sensitive) - the compiler will catch typos when you mess up.
Just accept that this is cruft from the good old days when computers were still made from metal.