The preprocessor runs in a separate compilation phase. It parses tokens instead of C/C++ code with blocks, etc.   Depending on your intended syntax details the preprocessor could get complicated a lot. C++ is probably the most difficult language to parse, which does not need Perl for parsing ;-) (Perl can only be parsed by Perl)   Even if possible, would one want to hide the usage of the preprocessor by directives without #?   And the trend is going away from using the preprocessor, shouldn't be the proposal about a suggestion how to reduce the need for preprocessor directives?   What about compatibility? With C and with external tools (e.g. for include dependencies you only need to parse the preprocessor, not C++)?   -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von:Michael Levine via Std-Proposals <std-proposals_at_[hidden]> Gesendet:Di 13.12.2022 07:13 Betreff:Re: [std-proposals] condexpr: new syntax for preprocessor conditional inclusion An:std-proposals_at_[hidden]; CC:Michael Levine <melevine45_at_[hidden]>; I propose that we introduce the following new preprocessor conditional inclusion syntax:      condexpr if (expression or identifier, expression or identifier...) {         ....the conditional logic....     }  New keyword to reserve:  condexpr  Some advantages:   - The syntax looks more like standard C++ code and less like preprocessor directives   - Rather than writing the preprocessor conditional inclusion syntax like #ifdef and #endif at the beginning of each line, which breaks the flow of code if the code is already nested, this syntax can be written directly into the regular C++ code. Here is how I would rewrite most of the example from the Conditional Inclusion page here (https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/preprocessor/conditional) using this new syntax: #define ABCD 2 #include <iostream>   int main() {   condexpr if (ABCD) { std::cout <http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/io/cout> << "1: yes\n"; } else { std::cout <http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/io/cout> <<"1: no\n"; }   condexpr if (!ABCD) { std::cout <http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/io/cout> <<"2: no1\n"; } elif (ABCD == 2) { std::cout <http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/io/cout> <<"2: yes\n"; } else { std::cout <http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/io/cout> <<"2: no2\n"; }   condexpr if (!(DCBA) && (ABCD < 2*4-3)) { std::cout <http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/io/cout> <<"3: yes\n"; }  condexpr if (CPU) { std::cout <http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/io/cout> <<"4: no1\n"; } elif (GPU) { std::cout <http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/io/cout> <<"4: no2\n"; } elif (!RAM) { std::cout <http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/io/cout> <<"4: yes\n"; } else { std::cout <http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/io/cout> <<"4: no!\n"; }   } -- Std-Proposals mailing list Std-Proposals_at_[hidden] https://lists.isocpp.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/std-proposals