I was trying to find out how to tell, from within a C program under GCC, what OS the code was being compiled under. I was porting RPCemu to MacOSX, and wanted to switch between big and little endian code without doing something clunky in autoconf.

I Googled for lists of pre-defined C pre-processor macros, but found didn’t find any. Eventually, I discovered that you can get a list of the macros under GCC on a particular platform by creating an empty c file (empty.c) and running this command: gcc -std=c99 -E -dM empty.c

Linux - gcc (GCC) 3.2.3 20030502 (Red Hat Linux 3.2.3-56)

#

#define __HAVE_BUILTIN_SETJMP__ 1
#define __unix__ 1
#define __i386__ 1
#define __SIZE_TYPE__ unsigned int
#define __ELF__ 1
#define __GNUC_PATCHLEVEL__ 3
#define __GNUC_RH_RELEASE__ 56
#define __linux 1
#define __unix 1
#define __linux__ 1
#define __STDC_VERSION__ 199901L
#define __USER_LABEL_PREFIX__ 
#define __STDC_HOSTED__ 1
#define __WCHAR_TYPE__ long int
#define __gnu_linux__ 1
#define __WINT_TYPE__ unsigned int
#define __GNUC__ 3
#define __STRICT_ANSI__ 1
#define __GXX_ABI_VERSION 102
#define __GNUC_MINOR__ 2
#define __STDC__ 1
#define __PTRDIFF_TYPE__ int
#define __tune_i386__ 1
#define __REGISTER_PREFIX__ 
#define __NO_INLINE__ 1
#define __i386 1
#define __VERSION__ "3.2.3 20030502 (Red Hat Linux 3.2.3-56)"

Mac - powerpc-apple-darwin8-gcc-4.0.1 (GCC) 4.0.1 (Apple Computer, Inc. build 5341)

#

#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__ 5341
#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 5341)"
#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