Dir 4.10: Is a different form of the include guard considered a violation of the directive?

[GerlindeKettl]

The example of Directive 4.10 "Precautions shall be taken in order to prevent the contents of a header file being included more than once" says that in order to facilitate checking, the contents of the header should be protected from being included more than once using one of the following two forms:

Code:

#if !defined ( identifier )
#define identifier
/* Contents of file */
#endif



#ifndef identifier
#define identifier
/* Contents of file */
#endif

I got software from a third party which uses the first form, but the parentheses are a bit differently placed:

Code:

#if ( !defined identifier )

As I consider this include guard correct from a functional point of view, is this nevertheless a violation of Dir 4.10 because it does not use one of the two forms listed in the example?

[misra-c]

#if (!defined identifier) does not violate directive 4.10.

Dir 4.10 is a directive which means a full description is not provided ( see Section 6.1) Static analysis tools may assist in checking compliance of directives, but different tools may place different interpretations on what constitutes a non-compliance.

The purpose of the Directive is to prevent multiple inclusion of an Include file, and while the examples provided are informative only, any other form of Include Guard is compliant.

However, it is accepted that the two forms shown as examples that are most commonly checked by static analysis tools. Therefore the user is encouraged to use those forms where possible.