How to Detect Reliably MAC Os X, Ios, Linux, Windows in C Preprocessor

How to detect reliably Mac OS X, iOS, Linux, Windows in C preprocessor?

There are predefined macros that are used by most compilers, you can find the list here. GCC compiler predefined macros can be found here.
Here is an example for gcc:

#if defined(WIN32) || defined(_WIN32) || defined(__WIN32__) || defined(__NT__)
   //define something for Windows (32-bit and 64-bit, this part is common)
   #ifdef _WIN64
      //define something for Windows (64-bit only)
   #else
      //define something for Windows (32-bit only)
   #endif
#elif __APPLE__
    #include <TargetConditionals.h>
    #if TARGET_IPHONE_SIMULATOR
         // iOS, tvOS, or watchOS Simulator
    #elif TARGET_OS_MACCATALYST
         // Mac's Catalyst (ports iOS API into Mac, like UIKit).
    #elif TARGET_OS_IPHONE
        // iOS, tvOS, or watchOS device
    #elif TARGET_OS_MAC
        // Other kinds of Apple platforms
    #else
    #   error "Unknown Apple platform"
    #endif
#elif __ANDROID__
    // Below __linux__ check should be enough to handle Android,
    // but something may be unique to Android.
#elif __linux__
    // linux
#elif __unix__ // all unices not caught above
    // Unix
#elif defined(_POSIX_VERSION)
    // POSIX
#else
#   error "Unknown compiler"
#endif

The defined macros depend on the compiler that you are going to use.

The _WIN64 #ifdef can be nested into the _WIN32 #ifdef because _WIN32 is even defined when targeting the Windows x64 version. This prevents code duplication if some header includes are common to both
(also WIN32 without underscore allows IDE to highlight the right partition of code).

How do I check OS with a preprocessor directive?

The Predefined Macros for OS site has a very complete list of checks. Here are a few of them, with links to where they're found:

Windows

_WIN32   Both 32 bit and 64 bit

_WIN64   64 bit only

__CYGWIN__

Unix (Linux, *BSD, but not Mac OS X)

See this related question on some of the pitfalls of using this check.

unix

__unix

__unix__

Mac OS X

__APPLE__ Also used for classic

__MACH__

Both are defined; checking for either should work.

Linux

__linux__

linux Obsolete (not POSIX compliant)

__linux Obsolete (not POSIX compliant)

FreeBSD

__FreeBSD__

Android

__ANDROID__

C Preprocessor Mac OS

I think the sourceforge documentation means that you can use either __APPLE__ or __MACH__.

Detect Windows or Linux in C, C++

It's generally done like this (more or less):

#ifdef _WIN32
#include <windows.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <tchar.h>

#define DIV 1048576 
#define WIDTH 7
#endif

#ifdef linux
#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#endif


int main(int argc, char *argv[]) 
{
#ifdef _WIN32
MEMORYSTATUSEX statex;
    statex.dwLength = sizeof (statex);
    GlobalMemoryStatusEx (&statex);

    _tprintf (TEXT("There is  %*ld %% of memory in use.\n"),
            WIDTH, statex.dwMemoryLoad);
#endif

#ifdef linux
char cmd[30];
int flag = 0;   
FILE *fp;
char line[130];     
int TotalMem, TotalFree, TotalUsed;

flag=0;
memcpy (cmd,"\0",30);
sprintf(cmd,"free -t -m|grep Total");          
fp = popen(cmd, "r");       
while ( fgets( line, sizeof line, fp))
{   
    flag++;
    sscanf(line,"%*s %d %d %d",&TotalMem, &TotalUsed, &TotalFree);
}
pclose(fp); 

if(flag)
    printf("TotalMem:%d -- TotalUsed:%d -- TotalFree:%d\n",TotalMem,TotalUsed,TotalFree);
else 
    printf("not found\n");
#endif

    return 0;
}

This way, only code for linux will be compiled while on a linux platform, and only windows code will be compiled on a windows platform.

How to check if the current operating system is Windows, Linux, or OSX?

The use of #ifdef uses preprocessor symbols to conditionally compile code depending on which symbols are defined. In your example, the compiler or an #include file may define WIN32, which means the code is being compiled in a Win32 environment.

Depending on the compiler and the platform, there may be different predefined symbols that indicate the operating system or processor architecture (among many other possible things) that relate to the current compilation environment.

With gcc, you can show the predefined symbols using the following command line:

gcc -E -dM - </dev/null

On my machine, one of the defined symbols is:

#define __FreeBSD__ 8

This happens to mean that I'm running FreeBSD version 8.

(The above applies to C and C-family languages such as C++.)

C++ compiling on Windows and Linux: ifdef switch

use:

#ifdef __linux__ 
    //linux code goes here
#elif _WIN32
    // windows code goes here
#else

#endif

---

Related Topics