Macros not producing required result-CodePudding

I am new to C (coming previously from Python). I am confused over this part of code:

#include <stdio.h>
#define square(x) x*x
int main()
{
    int x = 36/square(6);
    printf("%d", x);
    return 0;
}

I don't know why macro square(x) is not producing output 1 and why is it printing 36? Can you shed some light on this?

CodePudding user response：

You need to wrap the macro in parentheses, like this:

#define square(x) (x*x)

The way you've written it, 36/square(6) expands to 36/6*6, which is evaluated as (36/6)*6, or 36.

With parentheses, it will correctly be evaluated as 36/(6*6), or 1.