Editing C preprocessor (section)

==== Binary resource inclusion ====
[[C23 (C standard revision)|C23]] and [[C++26]] introduce the <code>#embed</code> directive for '''binary resource inclusion''' which allows including the content of a binary file into a source even though it's not valid C code.<ref>{{cite web |title=WG14-N3017 : #embed – a scannable, tooling-friendly binary resource inclusion mechanism |url=https://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n3017.htm |website=open-std.org |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221224045304/https://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n3017.htm |archive-date=24 December 2022 |date=2022-06-27 |url-status=live}}</ref>
This allows binary resources (like images) to be included into a program without requiring processing by external tools like <code>xxd -i</code> and without the use of [[string literal]]s which have a length limit on [[MSVC]]. Similarly to <code>xxd -i</code> the directive is replaced by a comma separated list of integers corresponding to the data of the specified resource. More precisely, if an array of type {{code|unsigned char}} is initialized using an <code>#embed</code> directive, the result is the same as-if the resource was written to the array using <code>[[fread]]</code> (unless a parameter changes the embed element width to something other than <code>[[Limits.h|CHAR_BIT]]</code>). Apart from the convenience, <code>#embed</code> is also easier <!--than what?--> for compilers to handle, since they are allowed to skip expanding the directive to its full form due to the [[as-if rule]].

The file to embed is specified the same as for <code>#include</code> {{endash}} either with [[angle brackets|brackets]] or double quotes. The directive also allows certain parameters to be passed to it to customize its behavior. The C standard defines some parameters and implementations may define additional. The <code>limit</code> parameter is used to limit the width of the included data. It is mostly intended to be used with "infinite" files like [[urandom]]. The <code>prefix</code> and <code>suffix</code> parameters allow for specifying a prefix and suffix to the embedded data. Finally, the <code>if_empty</code> parameter replaces the entire directive if the resource is empty. All standard parameters can be surrounded by double underscores, just like standard attributes on C23, for example <code>__prefix__</code> is interchangeable with <code>prefix</code> <!-- This will not be the case in C++ once the feature is ported over. See: P1967-->. Implementation-defined parameters use a form similar to [[C++11#Attributes|attribute]] syntax (e.g., <code>vendor::attr</code>) but without the square brackets. While all standard parameters require an argument to be passed to them (e.g., limit requires a width), this is generally optional and even the set of parentheses can be omitted if an argument is not required, which might be the case for some implementation-defined parameters.

<syntaxhighlight lang="cpp">
const unsigned char icon_display_data[] = {
    #embed "art.png"
};

/* specify any type which can be initialized form integer constant expressions will do */
const char reset_blob[] = {
    #embed "data.bin"
};

/* attributes work just as well */
const signed char aligned_data_str[] __attribute__ ((aligned (8))) = {
    #embed "attributes.xml"
};

int main() {
    return
#embed </dev/urandom> limit(1)
    ;
}
</syntaxhighlight>