C and C++


LANG.PREPROC.RECURSIVE : Recursive Macro

Summary

The name N of a macro appears in its expansion: either because the macro definition itself contains N, or because the definition contains the name of a different macro whose (eventual) expansion contains N.

Properties

Class Name Recursive Macro
Significance style
Mnemonic LANG.PREPROC.RECURSIVE
Categories
AUTOSARC++14 AUTOSARC++14:A16-0-1 The pre-processor shall only be used for unconditional and conditional file inclusion and include guards, and using the following directives: (1) #ifndef, (2) #ifdef, (3) #if, (4) #if defined, (5) #elif, (6) #else, (7) #define, (8) #endif, (9) #include.
CWE CWE:710 Improper Adherence to Coding Standards
POW10 POW10:8 Limit the use of the preprocessor to file inclusion and simple macros.
JPL JPL:20 Make only very limited use of the C pre-processor.
Availability Available for C and C++.
Enabling Checks for this warning class are disabled by default. To enable them, add the following WARNING_FILTER rule to the project configuration file.
WARNING_FILTER += allow class="Recursive Macro"

Examples

/* 'Recursive Macro' warning issued on following line */
#define expl(a) \
    ((a)==1 ? 1 : ((a) * expl((a)-1)))
        
/* 'Recursive Macro' warning issued on following line */
#define x (y + 1)
#define y (x + 2)

Note that the warning report for example 2 will mark both macros as contributing to a recursion cycle; the special warning description box will be located next to the one that CodeSonar encountered first.

Relevant Configuration File Parameters

The following configuration file parameters affect checks for this warning class.