In Linux header file epoll.h, I found the following code:
enum EPOLL_EVENTS
{
EPOLLIN = 0x001,
#define EPOLLIN EPOLLIN
...
}
What does it mean by #define EPOLLIN EPOLLIN?
#define EPOLLIN EPOLLIN
This defines the preprocessor macro EPOLLIN to be EPOLLIN.
It is probably defined for the purposes of later #ifdef EPOLLIN checks.
This create a macro named EPOLLIN whose replacement text is also EPOLLIN.
This is most likely a way for the preprocessor to check which event codes are available and conditionally compile code as necessary. If we go to the git repo for glibc and look at the output of git blame we see the following for enum EPOLL_EVENTS:
ad3bf20c (Ulrich Drepper 2002-12-16 23:38:42 +0000 34) enum EPOLL_EVENTS
ad3bf20c (Ulrich Drepper 2002-12-16 23:38:42 +0000 35) {
ad3bf20c (Ulrich Drepper 2002-12-16 23:38:42 +0000 36) EPOLLIN = 0x001,
ad3bf20c (Ulrich Drepper 2002-12-16 23:38:42 +0000 37) #define EPOLLIN EPOLLIN
ad3bf20c (Ulrich Drepper 2002-12-16 23:38:42 +0000 38) EPOLLPRI = 0x002,
ad3bf20c (Ulrich Drepper 2002-12-16 23:38:42 +0000 39) #define EPOLLPRI EPOLLPRI
ad3bf20c (Ulrich Drepper 2002-12-16 23:38:42 +0000 40) EPOLLOUT = 0x004,
ad3bf20c (Ulrich Drepper 2002-12-16 23:38:42 +0000 41) #define EPOLLOUT EPOLLOUT
ad3bf20c (Ulrich Drepper 2002-12-16 23:38:42 +0000 42) EPOLLRDNORM = 0x040,
ad3bf20c (Ulrich Drepper 2002-12-16 23:38:42 +0000 43) #define EPOLLRDNORM EPOLLRDNORM
ad3bf20c (Ulrich Drepper 2002-12-16 23:38:42 +0000 44) EPOLLRDBAND = 0x080,
ad3bf20c (Ulrich Drepper 2002-12-16 23:38:42 +0000 45) #define EPOLLRDBAND EPOLLRDBAND
ad3bf20c (Ulrich Drepper 2002-12-16 23:38:42 +0000 46) EPOLLWRNORM = 0x100,
ad3bf20c (Ulrich Drepper 2002-12-16 23:38:42 +0000 47) #define EPOLLWRNORM EPOLLWRNORM
ad3bf20c (Ulrich Drepper 2002-12-16 23:38:42 +0000 48) EPOLLWRBAND = 0x200,
ad3bf20c (Ulrich Drepper 2002-12-16 23:38:42 +0000 49) #define EPOLLWRBAND EPOLLWRBAND
ad3bf20c (Ulrich Drepper 2002-12-16 23:38:42 +0000 50) EPOLLMSG = 0x400,
ad3bf20c (Ulrich Drepper 2002-12-16 23:38:42 +0000 51) #define EPOLLMSG EPOLLMSG
ad3bf20c (Ulrich Drepper 2002-12-16 23:38:42 +0000 52) EPOLLERR = 0x008,
ad3bf20c (Ulrich Drepper 2002-12-16 23:38:42 +0000 53) #define EPOLLERR EPOLLERR
5e826ab5 (Ulrich Drepper 2003-03-25 01:14:36 +0000 54) EPOLLHUP = 0x010,
ad3bf20c (Ulrich Drepper 2002-12-16 23:38:42 +0000 55) #define EPOLLHUP EPOLLHUP
94833f11 (Ulrich Drepper 2007-10-28 01:34:10 +0000 56) EPOLLRDHUP = 0x2000,
94833f11 (Ulrich Drepper 2007-10-28 01:34:10 +0000 57) #define EPOLLRDHUP EPOLLRDHUP
981569c7 (Joseph Myers 2016-03-14 19:04:53 +0000 58) EPOLLEXCLUSIVE = 1u << 28,
981569c7 (Joseph Myers 2016-03-14 19:04:53 +0000 59) #define EPOLLEXCLUSIVE EPOLLEXCLUSIVE
f8d44fdc (Andreas Jaeger 2012-07-26 13:11:33 +0200 60) EPOLLWAKEUP = 1u << 29,
f8d44fdc (Andreas Jaeger 2012-07-26 13:11:33 +0200 61) #define EPOLLWAKEUP EPOLLWAKEUP
4920765e (Ulrich Drepper 2011-12-21 22:14:05 -0500 62) EPOLLONESHOT = 1u << 30,
e11676dd (Ulrich Drepper 2004-01-21 06:23:26 +0000 63) #define EPOLLONESHOT EPOLLONESHOT
4920765e (Ulrich Drepper 2011-12-21 22:14:05 -0500 64) EPOLLET = 1u << 31
5e826ab5 (Ulrich Drepper 2003-03-25 01:14:36 +0000 65) #define EPOLLET EPOLLET
ad3bf20c (Ulrich Drepper 2002-12-16 23:38:42 +0000 66) };
From here, you can see that most of these events were created back in 2002 but a number of others were added later. So these macros allow you to check if a particular flag is available as follows:
#ifdef EPOLLEXCLUSIVE
/* code that can handle EPOLLEXCLUSIVE */
#else
/* code that uses an alternate event */
#endif
This way the code can run on newer Linux versions that have the newer events available or on older versions that don't.