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(gcc-300.info)Function Names

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Function Names as Strings
=========================

   GCC predefines two magic identifiers to hold the name of the current
function.  The identifier `__FUNCTION__' holds the name of the function
as it appears in the source.  The identifier `__PRETTY_FUNCTION__'
holds the name of the function pretty printed in a language specific
fashion.

   These names are always the same in a C function, but in a C++
function they may be different.  For example, this program:

     extern "C" {
     extern int printf (char *, ...);
     }
     
     class a {
      public:
       sub (int i)
         {
           printf ("__FUNCTION__ = %s\n", __FUNCTION__);
           printf ("__PRETTY_FUNCTION__ = %s\n", __PRETTY_FUNCTION__);
         }
     };
     
     int
     main (void)
     {
       a ax;
       ax.sub (0);
       return 0;
     }

gives this output:

     __FUNCTION__ = sub
     __PRETTY_FUNCTION__ = int  a::sub (int)

   The compiler automagically replaces the identifiers with a string
literal containing the appropriate name.  Thus, they are neither
preprocessor macros, like `__FILE__' and `__LINE__', nor variables.
This means that they catenate with other string literals, and that they
can be used to initialize char arrays.  For example

     char here[] = "Function " __FUNCTION__ " in " __FILE__;

   On the other hand, `#ifdef __FUNCTION__' does not have any special
meaning inside a function, since the preprocessor does not do anything
special with the identifier `__FUNCTION__'.

   Note that these semantics are deprecated, and that GCC 3.2 will
handle `__FUNCTION__' and `__PRETTY_FUNCTION__' the same way as
`__func__'.  `__func__' is defined by the ISO standard C99:

     The identifier `__func__' is implicitly declared by the translator
     as if, immediately following the opening brace of each function
     definition, the declaration
          static const char __func__[] = "function-name";
     
     appeared, where function-name is the name of the lexically-enclosing
     function.  This name is the unadorned name of the function.

   By this definition, `__func__' is a variable, not a string literal.
In particular, `__func__' does not catenate with other string literals.

   In `C++', `__FUNCTION__' and `__PRETTY_FUNCTION__' are variables,
declared in the same way as `__func__'.