About getc and fgetc. Please help.

Here is what I found from K&R 2e

Originally Posted by K&R 2e

int fgetc(FILE *stream)
fgetc returns the next character of stream as an unsigned char (converted to an int), or EOF if end of file or error occurs.

int getc(FILE *stream)
getc is equivalent to fgetc except that if it is a macro, it may evaluate stream more than once.

I cannot understand what's the difference between these two functions. What does it mean by "if it is a macro, it may evaluate stream more than once"? Could somebody please be kind enough to give me some examples. Thank you very much.

If you pass a "value" to a macro, perhaps like this:

Code:

getc(fp++);

and the macro does something like this:

Code:

#define getc(f) \
  ((--((f)->level) >= 0) ? (unsigned char)(*(f)->curp++) : \
    _fgetc (f))

then the original is parsed like this:

Code:

  ((--((fp++)->level) >= 0) ? (unsigned char)(*(fp++)->curp++) : \
    _fgetc (fp++))

which may be bad.

Oh...I see. That means getc might be implemented as a macro, but fgetc is implemented as a function.

But if they are both implemented as a function then what is the point of having one or the other?

Originally Posted by sand_man

But if they are both implemented as a function then what is the point of having one or the other?

The C standard leaves the possibility that getc will be implemented as a macro that may evaluate the stream more than once. Just because your implementation uses a function doesn't mean that anyone elses will.

The reason there are two is likely because macro's have intrinsically less overhead than functions for tiny pieces of code.

Thus, if your expression that you pass to getc has no side effects, it's advisable to use getc. If it does have side effects, you should definitely use fgetc.