Question

I would like to display my current C file using C program. I know that the executable name can be obtained by argv[0]. But I want the file name as 'hello.c' for example. Is it possible?

Answer 1

A single program can be comprised of several C files. So which one are you looking for?

The __FILE__ macro was made for this reason. It is replaced by the preprocessor with the name of the current source (.C) file being compiled.

main.c

#include <stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char** argv)
{
    printf("Executable name: %s\n", argv[0]);

    printf("This is %s() from %s, line %d\n",
        __FUNCTION__, __FILE__, __LINE__);

    one();

    return 0;
}

one.c

#include <stdio.h>
void one(void)
{
    printf("This is %s() from %s, line %d\n",
        __FUNCTION__, __FILE__, __LINE__);
}

Output (assuming executable name is “hello.exe”):

Executable name: hello.exe
This is main() from main.c, line 4
This is one() from one.c, line 3

See also:

• __FILE__, __LINE__, and __FUNCTION__ usage in C++