Progress
Programming
Handbook


The Preprocessor

This chapter discusses the Progress language preprocessor, a powerful tool that enhances your programming flexibility. The Progress preprocessor allows you to write applications that are easy to read, modify, and transport to other operating systems.

The preprocessor is a component of the Progress Compiler. Before the Compiler analyzes your source code and creates r-code, the preprocessor examines your source code and performs text substitutions. The preprocessor also conditionally includes blocks of source code to compile. The preprocessor operates on a compilation unit, which is a group of files compiled together to produce one completed program. You can think of the preprocessor as a tool that prepares a final version of your source code just before it is compiled.

You control the preprocessor by placing preprocessor directives throughout your source code. A preprocessor directive is a statement that begins with an ampersand (&) and is meaningful only to the preprocessor. These directives are described in this chapter.


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