SDL_WPRINTF_VARARG_FUNC(3)

✨ SDL_WPRINTF_VARARG_FUNC ✨

okay bestie, gather round, because this one is a macro from SDL3 (the SDL3 FUNCTIONS manual, no big deal 💅) and it's literally just here to make your compiler do the annoying friend thing where it tells you when you messed up. we love a supportive compiler. 🫶

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🌸 NAME 🌸

SDL_WPRINTF_VARARG_FUNC — a macro that annotates a vararg function that operates like wprintf. that's it, that's the whole job, and it eats. 👑

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

#include <SDL3/SDL_stdinc.h>

#define SDL_WPRINTF_VARARG_FUNC( fmtargnumber ) /* __attribute__ (( format( __wprintf__, fmtargnumber, fmtargnumber+1 ))) */

like yes, the definition is a comment, we'll get to why in a sec, don't panic. 🌈

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so the vibe here is: you've got a function that takes a wide-string format and then a bunch of ... after it, and you want the compiler to check that the format string and the args actually match up. that's what this macro is for.

let's say we were annotating fwprintf — it would look exactly like this:

int fwprintf(FILE *f, const wchar_t *fmt, ...) SDL_WPRINTF_VARARG_FUNC(2);

what this is noting is that the second parameter should be a wprintf-style format wide string, followed by .... and then the compiler (or other analysis tools, hi besties 👋) can warn when this doesn't appear to be the case. it's giving built-in proofreader. it's giving "not me catching your bugs before runtime." 😭

and here's the lowkey iconic part: on compilers without this annotation mechanism, this is defined to nothing. so it just quietly vanishes. no drama, no breakage. it's fine. everything is fine. 💀

this can (and should, fr fr, do not skip this) be used with SDL_PRINTF_FORMAT_STRING as well, and between the two of them you'll cover at least Visual Studio, GCC, and Clang. the whole squad. 🌟

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🦋 AVAILABILITY 🦋

this macro is available since SDL 3.2.0. new-ish, but she's here and she's slaying. ✨

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and that's the whole page, no cap. shoutout to Simple Directmedia Layer for the source, this is from SDL 3.4.18, and yeah — SDL_WPRINTF_VARARG_FUNC(3), that's her. go annotate something. periodt. 💜🎀🌸