Editing Preprocessor (section)

==General purpose preprocessor==
{{main|General-purpose macro processor}}
Most preprocessors are specific to a particular data processing task (e.g., [[compilers|compiling]] the C language). A preprocessor may be promoted as being ''general purpose'', meaning that it is not aimed at a specific usage or programming language, and is intended to be used for a wide variety of text processing tasks.

{{see also|C preprocessor#Other uses}}
[[M4 (computer language)|M4]] is probably the most well known example of such a general purpose preprocessor, although the C preprocessor is sometimes used in a non-C specific role. Examples:
* using C preprocessor for [[JavaScript]] preprocessing.<ref>Show how to use [[C preprocessor|C-preprocessor]] on JavaScript files. [https://web.archive.org/web/20080116034428/http://blog.inetoffice.com/?p=12 "JavaScript is Not Industrial Strength"] ''by T. Snyder''.</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=The C Preprocessor in Javascript? |url=http://www.nongnu.org/espresso/js-cpp.html |website=espresso-mode}}</ref>
* using C preprocessor for [[devicetree]] processing within the [[Linux kernel]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git/commit/?id=b40b25fff8205dd18124d8fc87b2c9c57f269b5f|title=Kernel/Git/Stable/Linux.git - Linux kernel stable tree}}</ref>
* using [[M4 (computer language)|M4]] <small>(see on-article example)</small> or C preprocessor<ref>Show how to use [[C preprocessor|C-preprocessor]] as [[template processor|template engine]].
[https://jkorpela.fi/html/cpre.html "Using a C preprocessor as an HTML authoring tool"] ''by J. Korpela'', 2000.</ref> as a [[Web template system|template engine]], to [[HTML]] generation.
* [[imake]], a [[make (software)|make]] interface using the C preprocessor, written for the [[X Window System]] but now deprecated in favour of [[automake]].
* [[grompp]], a preprocessor for simulation input files for [[GROMACS]] (a fast, free, open-source code for some problems in [[computational chemistry]]) which calls the system C preprocessor (or other preprocessor as determined by the simulation input file) to parse the topology, using mostly the #define and #include mechanisms to determine the effective topology at grompp run time.