Why can't we define recursive function as a preprocessor ?? See the below example

#include <stdio.h> 
#define factorial(a) (a==1?1:a*factorial(a-1))
    
    int main() 
    { 
        int n; 
        printf("Enter number\n"); 
        scanf("%d", &n); 
        int fact = factorial(n)    
        
         printf("Factorial is %d ",fact); 
        
            return 0; 
}

Answers

•   
  

  Macros are pre-processor i.e., they are processed before compilation and are not compiled. So, it can’t be recursive because it factorial(n) is replaced just once during the recursion.

  
  

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