c++ - What's the difference between __PRETTY_FUNCTION__, __FUNCTION__, __func__?

Question

What's the difference between __PRETTY_FUNCTION__, __FUNCTION__, __func__, and where are they documented? How do I decide which one to use?

Answer 1

__func__ is an implicitly declared identifier that expands to a character array variable containing the function name when it is used inside of a function. It was added to C in C99. From C99 §6.4.2.2/1:

The identifier __func__ is implicitly declared by the translator as if, immediately following the opening brace of each function definition, the declaration

static const char __func__[] = "function-name";

appeared, where function-name is the name of the lexically-enclosing function. This name is the unadorned name of the function.

Note that it is not a macro and it has no special meaning during preprocessing.

__func__ was added to C++ in C++11, where it is specified as containing "an implementation-de?ned string" (C++11 §8.4.1[dcl.fct.def.general]/8), which is not quite as useful as the specification in C. (The original proposal to add __func__ to C++ was N1642).

__FUNCTION__ is a pre-standard extension that some C compilers support (including gcc and Visual C++); in general, you should use __func__ where it is supported and only use __FUNCTION__ if you are using a compiler that does not support it (for example, Visual C++, which does not support C99 and does not yet support all of C++0x, does not provide __func__).

__PRETTY_FUNCTION__ is a gcc extension that is mostly the same as __FUNCTION__, except that for C++ functions it contains the "pretty" name of the function including the signature of the function. Visual C++ has a similar (but not quite identical) extension, __FUNCSIG__.

For the nonstandard macros, you will want to consult your compiler's documentation. The Visual C++ extensions are included in the MSDN documentation of the C++ compiler's "Predefined Macros". The gcc documentation extensions are described in the gcc documentation page "Function Names as Strings."