Passing variable number of arguments around

Question

Say I have a C function which takes a variable number of arguments: How can I call another function which expects a variable number of arguments from inside of it, passing all the arguments that got into the first function?

Example:

void format_string(char *fmt, ...);

void debug_print(int dbg_lvl, char *fmt, ...) {
    format_string(fmt, /* how do I pass all the arguments from '...'? */);
    fprintf(stdout, fmt);
 }

Answer 1

To pass the ellipses on, you initialize a va_list as usual and simply pass it to your second function. You don't use va_arg(). Specifically;

void format_string(char *fmt,va_list argptr, char *formatted_string);


void debug_print(int dbg_lvl, char *fmt, ...) 
{    
 char formatted_string[MAX_FMT_SIZE];

 va_list argptr;
 va_start(argptr,fmt);
 format_string(fmt, argptr, formatted_string);
 va_end(argptr);
 fprintf(stdout, "%s",formatted_string);
}

Answer 2

There's no way of calling (eg) printf without knowing how many arguments you're passing to it, unless you want to get into naughty and non-portable tricks.

The generally used solution is to always provide an alternate form of vararg functions, so printf has vprintf which takes a va_list in place of the .... The ... versions are just wrappers around the va_list versions.

Answer 3

Variadic Functions can be dangerous. Here's a safer trick:

   void func(type* values) {
        while(*values) {
            x = *values++;
            /* do whatever with x */
        }
    }

func((type[]){val1,val2,val3,val4,0});

Answer 4

In magnificent C++0x you could use variadic templates:

template <typename ... Ts>
void format_string(char *fmt, Ts ... ts) {}

template <typename ... Ts>
void debug_print(int dbg_lvl, char *fmt, Ts ... ts)
{
  format_string(fmt, ts...);
}

Answer 5

You can use inline assembly for the function call. (in this code I assume the arguments are characters).

void format_string(char *fmt, ...);
void debug_print(int dbg_level, int numOfArgs, char *fmt, ...)
    {
        va_list argumentsToPass;
        va_start(argumentsToPass, fmt);
        char *list = new char[numOfArgs];
        for(int n = 0; n < numOfArgs; n++)
            list[n] = va_arg(argumentsToPass, char);
        va_end(argumentsToPass);
        for(int n = numOfArgs - 1; n >= 0; n--)
        {
            char next;
            next = list[n];
            __asm push next;
        }
        __asm push fmt;
        __asm call format_string;
        fprintf(stdout, fmt);
    }

Answer 6

You can try macro also.

#define NONE    0x00
#define DBG     0x1F
#define INFO    0x0F
#define ERR     0x07
#define EMR     0x03
#define CRIT    0x01

#define DEBUG_LEVEL ERR

#define WHERESTR "[FILE : %s, FUNC : %s, LINE : %d]: "
#define WHEREARG __FILE__,__func__,__LINE__
#define DEBUG(...)  fprintf(stderr, __VA_ARGS__)
#define DEBUG_PRINT(X, _fmt, ...)  if((DEBUG_LEVEL & X) == X) \
                                      DEBUG(WHERESTR _fmt, WHEREARG,__VA_ARGS__)

int main()
{
    int x=10;
    DEBUG_PRINT(DBG, "i am x %d\n", x);
    return 0;
}

Answer 7

Though you can solve passing the formatter by storing it in local buffer first, but that needs stack and can sometime be issue to deal with. I tried following and it seems to work fine.

#include <stdarg.h>
#include <stdio.h>

void print(char const* fmt, ...)
{
    va_list arg;
    va_start(arg, fmt);
    vprintf(fmt, arg);
    va_end(arg);
}

void printFormatted(char const* fmt, va_list arg)
{
    vprintf(fmt, arg);
}

void showLog(int mdl, char const* type, ...)
{
    print("\nMDL: %d, TYPE: %s", mdl, type);

    va_list arg;
    va_start(arg, type);
    char const* fmt = va_arg(arg, char const*);
    printFormatted(fmt, arg);
    va_end(arg);
}

int main() 
{
    int x = 3, y = 6;
    showLog(1, "INF, ", "Value = %d, %d Looks Good! %s", x, y, "Infact Awesome!!");
    showLog(1, "ERR");
}

Hope this helps.

Answer 8

Ross' solution cleaned-up a bit. Only works if all args are pointers. Also language implementation must support eliding of previous comma if __VA_ARGS__ is empty (both Visual Studio C++ and GCC do).

// pass number of arguments version
 #define callVardicMethodSafely(...) {value_t *args[] = {NULL, __VA_ARGS__}; _actualFunction(args+1,sizeof(args) / sizeof(*args) - 1);}


// NULL terminated array version
 #define callVardicMethodSafely(...) {value_t *args[] = {NULL, __VA_ARGS__, NULL}; _actualFunction(args+1);}

Answer 9

Short answer

/// logs all messages below this level, level 0 turns off LOG 
#ifndef LOG_LEVEL
#define LOG_LEVEL 5  // 0:off, 1:error, 2:warning, 3: info, 4: debug, 5:verbose
#endif
#define _LOG_FORMAT_SHORT(letter, format) "[" #letter "]: " format "\n"

/// short log
#define log_s(level, format, ...)     \                                                                                  
    if (level <= LOG_LEVEL)            \                                                                                     
    printf(_LOG_FORMAT_SHORT(level, format), ##__VA_ARGS__)

usage

log_s(1, "fatal error occurred");
log_s(3, "x=%d and name=%s",2, "ali");

output

[1]: fatal error occurred
[3]: x=2 and name=ali

log with file and line number

const char* _getFileName(const char* path)
{
    size_t i = 0;
    size_t pos = 0;
    char* p = (char*)path;
    while (*p) {
        i++;
        if (*p == '/' || *p == '\\') {
            pos = i;
        }
        p++;
    }
    return path + pos;
}

#define _LOG_FORMAT(letter, format)      \                                                                        
    "[" #letter "][%s:%u] %s(): " format "\n", _getFileName(__FILE__), __LINE__, __FUNCTION__

#ifndef LOG_LEVEL
#define LOG_LEVEL 5 // 0:off, 1:error, 2:warning, 3: info, 4: debug, 5:verbose
#endif

/// long log
#define log_l(level, format, ...)     \                                                                               
    if (level <= LOG_LEVEL)            \                                                                                         
    printf(_LOG_FORMAT(level, format), ##__VA_ARGS__)

usage

log_s(1, "fatal error occurred");
log_s(3, "x=%d and name=%s",2, "ali");

output

[1][test.cpp:97] main(): fatal error occurred
[3][test.cpp:98] main(): x=2 and name=ali

custom print function

you can write custom print function and pass ... args to it and it is also possible to combine this with methods above. source from here

int print_custom(const char* format, ...)
{
    static char loc_buf[64];
    char* temp = loc_buf;
    int len;
    va_list arg;
    va_list copy;
    va_start(arg, format);
    va_copy(copy, arg);
    len = vsnprintf(NULL, 0, format, arg);
    va_end(copy);
    if (len >= sizeof(loc_buf)) {
        temp = (char*)malloc(len + 1);
        if (temp == NULL) {
            return 0;
        }
    }
    vsnprintf(temp, len + 1, format, arg);
    printf(temp); // replace with any print function you want
    va_end(arg);
    if (len >= sizeof(loc_buf)) {
        free(temp);
    }
    return len;
}

Answer 10

Let's say you have a typical variadic function you've written. Because at least one argument is required before the variadic one ..., you have to always write an extra argument in usage.

Or do you?

If you wrap your variadic function in a macro, you need no preceding arg. Consider this example:

#define LOGI(...)
    ((void)__android_log_print(ANDROID_LOG_INFO, LOG_TAG, __VA_ARGS__))

This is obviously far more convenient, since you needn't specify the initial argument every time.

Answer 11

I'm unsure if this works for all compilers, but it has worked so far for me.

void inner_func(int &i)
{
  va_list vars;
  va_start(vars, i);
  int j = va_arg(vars);
  va_end(vars); // Generally useless, but should be included.
}

void func(int i, ...)
{
  inner_func(i);
}

You can add the ... to inner_func() if you want, but you don't need it. It works because va_start uses the address of the given variable as the start point. In this case, we are giving it a reference to a variable in func(). So it uses that address and reads the variables after that on the stack. The inner_func() function is reading from the stack address of func(). So it only works if both functions use the same stack segment.

The va_start and va_arg macros will generally work if you give them any var as a starting point. So if you want you can pass pointers to other functions and use those too. You can make your own macros easily enough. All the macros do is typecast memory addresses. However making them work for all the compilers and calling conventions is annoying. So it's generally easier to use the ones that come with the compiler.