Home/ Questions/Q 8193027
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-06-07T04:20:13+00:00

Related questions How can I detect the operating system in C/C++? How can I

  • 0

Related questions
How can I detect the operating system in C/C++?

How can I find out what operating system I am running under in GCC or in ANSI C?

I’d be fine If I can know if I’m running on POSIX.

UPDATE:

It doesn’t make a difference to me whether it is at compile time or run time. I’m using this in a debug routine, so performance isn’t that important.

I’m looking for the path separator. Windows & Unix/Linux/BSD would be fine.

And, I’m trying to find the basename on a path. I found some solutions, but the solutions include a lot of includes which I do not want. I’m going to mod up this solution.

I’m on Mac OS X 10.4.11, and following this URL, I executed and got the following output:

mac $ touch myfile.c
mac $ gcc -std=c99 -E -dM myfile.c
#define __DBL_MIN_EXP__ (-1021)
#define __FLT_MIN__ 1.17549435e-38F
#define __CHAR_BIT__ 8
#define __WCHAR_MAX__ 2147483647
#define __DBL_DENORM_MIN__ 4.9406564584124654e-324
#define __FLT_EVAL_METHOD__ 0
#define __DBL_MIN_10_EXP__ (-307)
#define __FINITE_MATH_ONLY__ 0
#define __GNUC_PATCHLEVEL__ 1
#define __SHRT_MAX__ 32767
#define __LDBL_MAX__ 1.79769313486231580793728971405301e+308L
#define __APPLE_CC__ 5367
#define __UINTMAX_TYPE__ long long unsigned int
#define __LDBL_MAX_EXP__ 1024
#define __SCHAR_MAX__ 127
#define __USER_LABEL_PREFIX__ _
#define __STDC_HOSTED__ 1
#define __LDBL_HAS_INFINITY__ 1
#define __DBL_DIG__ 15
#define __FLT_EPSILON__ 1.19209290e-7F
#define __LDBL_MIN__ 2.00416836000897277799610805135016e-292L
#define __ppc__ 1
#define __strong 
#define __APPLE__ 1
#define __DECIMAL_DIG__ 33
#define __LDBL_HAS_QUIET_NAN__ 1
#define __DYNAMIC__ 1
#define __GNUC__ 4
#define __DBL_MAX__ 1.7976931348623157e+308
#define __DBL_HAS_INFINITY__ 1
#define __STRICT_ANSI__ 1
#define __weak 
#define __DBL_MAX_EXP__ 1024
#define __LONG_LONG_MAX__ 9223372036854775807LL
#define __GXX_ABI_VERSION 1002
#define __FLT_MIN_EXP__ (-125)
#define __DBL_MIN__ 2.2250738585072014e-308
#define __DBL_HAS_QUIET_NAN__ 1
#define __REGISTER_PREFIX__ 
#define __NO_INLINE__ 1
#define _ARCH_PPC 1
#define __FLT_MANT_DIG__ 24
#define __VERSION__ "4.0.1 (Apple Computer, Inc. build 5367)"
#define __BIG_ENDIAN__ 1
#define __SIZE_TYPE__ long unsigned int
#define __FLT_RADIX__ 2
#define __LDBL_EPSILON__ 4.94065645841246544176568792868221e-324L
#define __NATURAL_ALIGNMENT__ 1
#define __FLT_HAS_QUIET_NAN__ 1
#define __FLT_MAX_10_EXP__ 38
#define __LONG_MAX__ 2147483647L
#define __FLT_HAS_INFINITY__ 1
#define __STDC_VERSION__ 199901L
#define _BIG_ENDIAN 1
#define __LDBL_MANT_DIG__ 106
#define __WCHAR_TYPE__ int
#define __FLT_DIG__ 6
#define __INT_MAX__ 2147483647
#define __LONG_DOUBLE_128__ 1
#define __FLT_MAX_EXP__ 128
#define __DBL_MANT_DIG__ 53
#define __WINT_TYPE__ int
#define __LDBL_MIN_EXP__ (-968)
#define __MACH__ 1
#define __LDBL_MAX_10_EXP__ 308
#define __DBL_EPSILON__ 2.2204460492503131e-16
#define __INTMAX_MAX__ 9223372036854775807LL
#define __FLT_DENORM_MIN__ 1.40129846e-45F
#define __PIC__ 1
#define __FLT_MAX__ 3.40282347e+38F
#define __FLT_MIN_10_EXP__ (-37)
#define __INTMAX_TYPE__ long long int
#define __GNUC_MINOR__ 0
#define __DBL_MAX_10_EXP__ 308
#define __LDBL_DENORM_MIN__ 4.94065645841246544176568792868221e-324L
#define __PTRDIFF_TYPE__ int
#define __LDBL_MIN_10_EXP__ (-291)
#define __LDBL_DIG__ 31
#define __POWERPC__ 1
mac $
Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The Single UNIX Specification requires the existence of unistd.h, which can tell you the POSIX version (via the _POSIX_VERSION macro).

    But how can you include unistd.h if you don’t know yet that you are in fact compiling on a UNIX?

    That is where this GCC document comes handy. According to it, testing for the presence, or evaluation-to-true of __unix__ should tell you that the system is a UNIX. So:

    #ifdef __unix__
/* Yes it is a UNIX because __unix__ is defined.  */

#include <unistd.h>

/* You can find out the version with _POSIX_VERSION.
..
..  */

#endif

    __unix__ is not defined on Mac OS X, so to account for that, you could instead do:

    #if defined (__unix__) || (defined (__APPLE__) && defined (__MACH__))

    To get a list of system specific predefined macros on your system, you may execute:

    cpp -dM /dev/null

    For example, my GNU/Linux system also additionally defines __linux__ and __gnu_linux__ apart from __unix__ and a bunch of other stuff.

    Another useful document that you must look at is this Wiki.

    It goes on to present a way of detecting the presence and version of POSIX in a way similar to the one I described above.

    EDIT: Since you really want to do all this because you want to decide which directory separator to use, look at this URL. It says:

    Note File I/O functions in the Windows API convert “/” to “\” as part
    of converting the name to an NT-style name, except when using the
    “\?\” prefix as detailed in the following sections.

    I don’t program on Windows, or know much anything about it, so I can’t say I’ve banked on this.

    • 0