Using #define with build mode

Question

Is it possible to define something when building in debug mode?

For example:

...
#ifdef ENABLE_DEBUG
/* This line will be executed if the program is built in debug mode */
#endif
...

You should ask yourself if you really need a separate "debug" version. Shouldn't you release what you have tested? Will debugging not become more important when the software is already released? Do you want to make debugging harder for released software? Should released software not contain a lot of internal sanity checks to keep it from executing wrong code? — Christian Hackl
– Christian Hackl, Commented Mar 14, 2015 at 16:52

Angew is no longer proud of SO · Accepted Answer · 2015-03-14 16:44:22Z

1

This is indeed possible, because it's you who defines what "debug mode" means. There is no "standard" way to do this, because there is no such thing as "standard" debug mode. You, as the author of the buildsystem, are in control of all build settings. If you decide that you will define the macro DEBUG if and only if building in debug mode, you can of course use #ifdef DEBUG in your code to distinguish between debug and non-debug builds.

The closest "standard" thing you can get is that the macro assert is specified to do its check when macro NDEBUG is not defined, and do nothing when NDEBUG is defined. For this reason, IDEs normally set up build configurations so that debug builds do not define NDEBUG and optimised builds do.

answered Mar 14, 2015 at 16:44

Angew is no longer proud of SO

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