Understanding Preprocessors
A preprocessor is a program that converts one text into another by following specific rules written in a specific language. Unlike compilers that convert texts in human-readable (but not necessarily human-spoken) languages into machine code or any other inhumane representation, preprocessors stay at the same level of abstraction. If you feed a natural-language text into a preprocessor, the output is expected to be in a natural language. If you feed a program written in a programming language into a specialized source-to-source preprocessor (a transpiler), the output is another program. Preprocessors act as language translators, which makes them uniquely suitable for automated program code generation, a crucial aspect ...
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