Implementation-defined behavior (The C Preprocessor)

### 12.1 Implementation-defined behavior ¶

This is how CPP behaves in all the cases which the C standard describes as implementation-defined. This term means that the implementation is free to do what it likes, but must document its choice and stick to it.

- The mapping of physical source file multi-byte characters to the execution character set.

  The input character set can be specified using the `-finput-charset` option, while the execution character set may be controlled using the `-fexec-charset` and `-fwide-exec-charset` options.

- Identifier characters.

  The C and C++ standards allow identifiers to be composed of ‘`_`’ and the alphanumeric characters. C++ also allows universal character names. C99 and later C standards permit both universal character names and implementation-defined characters. In both C and C++ modes, GCC accepts in identifiers exactly those extended characters that correspond to universal character names permitted by the chosen standard.

  GCC allows the ‘`$`’ character in identifiers as an extension for most targets. This is true regardless of the `std=` switch, since this extension cannot conflict with standards-conforming programs. When preprocessing assembler, however, dollars are not identifier characters by default.

  Currently the targets that by default do not permit ‘`$`’ are AVR, IP2K, MMIX, MIPS Irix 3, ARM aout, and PowerPC targets for the AIX operating system.

  You can override the default with `-fdollars-in-identifiers` or `-fno-dollars-in-identifiers`. See fdollars-in-identifiers.

- Non-empty sequences of whitespace characters.

  In textual output, each whitespace sequence is collapsed to a single space. For aesthetic reasons, the first token on each non-directive line of output is preceded with sufficient spaces that it appears in the same column as it did in the original source file.

- The numeric value of character constants in preprocessor expressions.

  The preprocessor and compiler interpret character constants in the same way; i.e. escape sequences such as ‘`\a`’ are given the values they would have on the target machine.

  The compiler evaluates a multi-character character constant a character at a time, shifting the previous value left by the number of bits per target character, and then or-ing in the bit-pattern of the new character truncated to the width of a target character. The final bit-pattern is given type `int`, and is therefore signed, regardless of whether single characters are signed or not. If there are more characters in the constant than would fit in the target `int` the compiler issues a warning, and the excess leading characters are ignored.

  For example, `'ab'` for a target with an 8-bit `char` would be interpreted as ‘`(int) ((unsigned char) 'a' * 256 + (unsigned char) 'b')`’, and `'\234a'` as ‘`(int) ((unsigned char) '\234' * 256 + (unsigned char) 'a')`’.

- Source file inclusion.

  For a discussion on how the preprocessor locates header files, Include Operation.

- Interpretation of the filename resulting from a macro-expanded ‘`#include`’ directive.

  See Computed Includes.

- Treatment of a ‘`#pragma`’ directive that after macro-expansion results in a standard pragma.

  No macro expansion occurs on any ‘`#pragma`’ directive line, so the question does not arise.

  Note that GCC does not yet implement any of the standard pragmas.