What are preprocessor directives in c programing language?

Answer 1

Preprocessor directives are instructions to the preprocessor which modify the source code prior to compilation. The compiler never sees the directives, it only sees the modified source code.

Preprocessor directives can be used to insert the contents of one file into another (#include), define or undefine a macro (#define, #undef), provide conditional compilation (#if, #ifdef, #ifndef, #else, #endif) or provide some implementation-defined operation (#pragma).

When the preprocessor acts upon a directive, the directive is not included in the modified file. Where a directive defines a macro, all occurrences of the macro name within the source code are expanded according to the definition. Given that the compiler never sees that definition, this can lead to some obscure error messages where macro expansion results in a compile-time error.