va_args_count

A C macro to find the number of arguments in the C99 __VA_ARGS__ macro.

Usage

Used directly, the VA_ARGS_COUNT() macro returns the number of arguments passed to it as an int.

printf("There are %i arguments.\n", VA_ARGS_COUNT(1, "two", 3.0));

Counting Function Arguments

By itself, this isn't very useful. The VA_ARGS_COUNT() macro really shines when used inside other variadic macros. You may have a function that takes a variable number of arguments like this:

void print_strings(int count, const char *s1, ...);

where the first parameter count specifies the number of string arguments passed to the function. It's easy to use this type of function incorrectly:

// print 3 strings
print_strings(5, "one", "two", "three"); // wrong!

See the error? The print_strings() function will now grab two invalid values off the stack, printing garbage or even crashing.

This use of variable arguments is typically a poor design choice, but sometimes you run across old APIs like this. Wrapping a variadic macro around this type of function makes it much less error prone:

#define PRINT_STRINGS(...) \
    print_strings(VA_ARGS_COUNT(__VA_ARGS__), __VA_ARGS__)

Now the compiler does the counting for you:

// print 3 strings
PRINT_STRINGS("one", "two", "three");

Counting Array Items

Another great use of VA_ARGS_COUNT() is when passing arrays to functions. A common C idiom is to pass an array along with the count of items in the array, like this:

void print_int_array(int *int_array, int count);

Like the variadic print_strings() function, it's possible to pass an incorrect count with disasterous results, most commonly when using literal values:

// print 3 ints
int high_scores[] = { 100, 98, 93 };
print_int_array(high_scores, 5); // wrong!

Using C99 compound literals, you can make the same mistake in one line:

// print 3 ints
print_int_array((int[]) { 100, 98, 93 }, 5); // wrong!

The (int[]) { 100, 98, 93 } compound literal is equivalent to the high_scores array in the previous example.

With VA_ARGS_COUNT(), you can create a less error-prone wrapper macro for print_int_array() like this:

#define PRINT_INTS(...) \
    print_int_array( \
        (int[]) { __VA_ARGS__ }, \
        VA_ARGS_COUNT(__VA_ARGS__) \
    )

And it's easier to read:

// print 3 ints
PRINT_INTS(100, 98, 93);