ECMA-334 C# Language Specification

9.5.2: Pre-processing expressions

Pre-processing expressions can occur in #if and #elif directives. The operators !, ==, !=, && and || are permitted in pre-processing expressions, and parentheses may be used for grouping.

pp-expression
whitespaceopt pp-or-expression whitespaceopt
pp-or-expression
pp-and-expression
pp-or-expression whitespaceopt || whitespaceopt pp-and-expression
pp-and-expression
pp-equality-expression
pp-and-expression whitespaceopt && whitespaceopt pp-equality-expression
pp-equality-expression
pp-unary-expression
pp-equality-expression whitespaceopt == whitespaceopt pp-unary-expression
pp-equality-expression whitespaceopt != whitespaceopt pp-unary-expression
pp-unary-expression
pp-primary-expression
! whitespaceopt pp-unary-expression
pp-primary-expression
true
false
conditional-symbol
( whitespaceopt pp-expression whitespaceopt )

When referenced in a pre-processing expression, a defined conditional compilation symbol has the boolean value true, and an undefined conditional compilation symbol has the boolean value false.

Evaluation of a pre-processing expression always yields a boolean value. The rules of evaluation for a pre-processing expression are the same as those for a constant expression (14.15), except that the only user-defined entities that can be referenced are conditional compilation symbols.