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Symbolic Constants in C programming


A symbolic constant is a name that substitutes for a sequence of characters. The characters may represent numeric constant, a character constant or a string constant. Thus, a symbolic constant allows a name to appear in place of a numeric constant, a character constant or a string. When a program is compiled, each occurrence of a symbolic constant is replaced by its corresponding character sequence. Symbolic constants are usually defined at the beginning of a program. The symbolic constants may then appear later in the program in place of the numeric constants, character constant, etc that the symbolic constants represent.
A symbolic constant is defined by writing
#define name text

Where name represents a symbolic name, typically written in uppercase letters, and text represents the sequence of characters that is associated with the symbolic name. It doesn’t require semicolon. For example
#define TAXRATE 0.13
#define PI 3.141593
#define TRUE 1
#define FALSE 0
#define FRIEND “Susan”
area = PI * radius * radius; is equivalent to

area = 3.141593 * radius * radius ; 

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