Using PPNARG , I wrote a set of macros to apply a macro to each argument in a macro. I call it a variable X macro.
#define PP_NARG(...) PP_NARG_(__VA_ARGS__,PP_RSEQ_N()) #define PP_NARG_(...) PP_ARG_N(__VA_ARGS__) #define PP_ARG_N( \ _1, _2, _3, _4, _5, _6, _7, _8, _9,_10, \ _11,_12,_13,_14,_15,_16,_17,_18,_19,_20, \ _21,_22,_23,_24,_25,_26,_27,_28,_29,_30, \ _31,_32,_33,_34,_35,_36,_37,_38,_39,_40, \ _41,_42,_43,_44,_45,_46,_47,_48,_49,_50, \ _51,_52,_53,_54,_55,_56,_57,_58,_59,_60, \ _61,_62,_63,N,...) N #define PP_RSEQ_N() \ 63,62,61,60, \ 59,58,57,56,55,54,53,52,51,50, \ 49,48,47,46,45,44,43,42,41,40, \ 39,38,37,36,35,34,33,32,31,30, \ 29,28,27,26,25,24,23,22,21,20, \ 19,18,17,16,15,14,13,12,11,10, \ 9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1,0
PPNARG allows us to count the number of arguments. Then we add this number to the macro name and call it with the original arguments.
/* need extra level to force extra eval */
And here are some examples with the result of gcc -E in the comments.
#define X(a) #a, char *list[] = { APPLYXn(sugar,coffee,drink,smoke) }; #undef X #define c1(a) case a: #define c2(a,b) c1(a) c1(b) #define c3(a,b,c) c1(a) c2(b,c) #define c4(a,b,c,d) c1(a) c3(b,c,d) #define c_(M, ...) M(__VA_ARGS__) #define cases(...) c_(XPASTE(c, PP_NARG(__VA_ARGS__)), __VA_ARGS__)
This is the last motive of all this. But it was not very useful.