Editing Preprocessor (section)

===C preprocessor===
{{main|C preprocessor}}
The most common example of this is the [[C preprocessor]], which takes lines beginning with '#' as [[Directive (programming)|directives]].
The C preprocessor does not expect its input to use the syntax of the C language.
Some languages take a different approach and use built-in language features to achieve similar things. For example:
* Instead of macros, some languages use aggressive inlining and templates.
* Instead of includes, some languages use compile-time imports that rely on type information in the object code.
* Some languages use <code>if-then-else</code> and [[dead code elimination]] to achieve [[conditional compilation]].