Detecting CPU architecture compile-time

What is the most reliable way to find out CPU architecture when compiling C or C++ code? As far as I can tell, different compilers have their own set of non-standard preprocessor definitions (_M_X86 in MSVS, __i386__, __arm__ in GCC, etc).

Is there a standard way to detect the architecture I'm building for? If not, is there a source for a comprehensive list of such definitions for various compilers, such as a header with all the boilerplate #ifdefs?

There's no inter-compiler standard, but each compiler tends to be quite consistent. You can build a header for yourself that's something like this:

#if MSVC
#ifdef _M_X86
#define ARCH_X86
#endif
#endif

#if GCC
#ifdef __i386__
#define ARCH_X86
#endif
#endif

There's not much point to a comprehensive list, because there are thousands of compilers but only 3-4 in widespread use (Microsoft C++, GCC, Intel CC, maybe TenDRA?). Just decide which compilers your application will support, list their #defines, and update your header as needed.

If you would like to dump all available features on a particular platform, you could run GCC like:

gcc -march=native -dM -E - </dev/null

It would dump macros like #define __SSE3__ 1, #define __AES__ 1, etc.

Enjoy, I was the original author of this.

extern "C" {
    const char *getBuild() { //Get current architecture, detectx nearly every architecture. Coded by Freak
        #if defined(__x86_64__) || defined(_M_X64)
        return "x86_64";
        #elif defined(i386) || defined(__i386__) || defined(__i386) || defined(_M_IX86)
        return "x86_32";
        #elif defined(__ARM_ARCH_2__)
        return "ARM2";
        #elif defined(__ARM_ARCH_3__) || defined(__ARM_ARCH_3M__)
        return "ARM3";
        #elif defined(__ARM_ARCH_4T__) || defined(__TARGET_ARM_4T)
        return "ARM4T";
        #elif defined(__ARM_ARCH_5_) || defined(__ARM_ARCH_5E_)
        return "ARM5"
        #elif defined(__ARM_ARCH_6T2_) || defined(__ARM_ARCH_6T2_)
        return "ARM6T2";
        #elif defined(__ARM_ARCH_6__) || defined(__ARM_ARCH_6J__) || defined(__ARM_ARCH_6K__) || defined(__ARM_ARCH_6Z__) || defined(__ARM_ARCH_6ZK__)
        return "ARM6";
        #elif defined(__ARM_ARCH_7__) || defined(__ARM_ARCH_7A__) || defined(__ARM_ARCH_7R__) || defined(__ARM_ARCH_7M__) || defined(__ARM_ARCH_7S__)
        return "ARM7";
        #elif defined(__ARM_ARCH_7A__) || defined(__ARM_ARCH_7R__) || defined(__ARM_ARCH_7M__) || defined(__ARM_ARCH_7S__)
        return "ARM7A";
        #elif defined(__ARM_ARCH_7R__) || defined(__ARM_ARCH_7M__) || defined(__ARM_ARCH_7S__)
        return "ARM7R";
        #elif defined(__ARM_ARCH_7M__)
        return "ARM7M";
        #elif defined(__ARM_ARCH_7S__)
        return "ARM7S";
        #elif defined(__aarch64__) || defined(_M_ARM64)
        return "ARM64";
        #elif defined(mips) || defined(__mips__) || defined(__mips)
        return "MIPS";
        #elif defined(__sh__)
        return "SUPERH";
        #elif defined(__powerpc) || defined(__powerpc__) || defined(__powerpc64__) || defined(__POWERPC__) || defined(__ppc__) || defined(__PPC__) || defined(_ARCH_PPC)
        return "POWERPC";
        #elif defined(__PPC64__) || defined(__ppc64__) || defined(_ARCH_PPC64)
        return "POWERPC64";
        #elif defined(__sparc__) || defined(__sparc)
        return "SPARC";
        #elif defined(__m68k__)
        return "M68K";
        #else
        return "UNKNOWN";
        #endif
    }
}

If you want a cross-compiler solution then just use Boost.Predef which contains

• BOOST_ARCH_ for system/CPU architecture one is compiling for.
• BOOST_COMP_ for the compiler one is using.
• BOOST_LANG_ for language standards one is compiling against.
• BOOST_LIB_C_ and BOOST_LIB_STD_ for the C and C++ standard library in use.
• BOOST_OS_ for the operating system we are compiling to.
• BOOST_PLAT_ for platforms on top of operating system or compilers.
• BOOST_ENDIAN_ for endianness of the os and architecture combination.
• BOOST_HW_ for hardware specific features.
• BOOST_HW_SIMD for SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data) detection.

For example

#if defined(BOOST_ARCH_X86)
    #if BOOST_ARCH_X86_64
        std::cout << "x86_64 " << BOOST_ARCH_X86_64 << " \n";
    #elif BOOST_ARCH_X86_32
        std::cout << "x86 " << BOOST_ARCH_X86_32 << " \n";
    #endif
#elif defined(BOOST_ARCH_ARM)
    #if _M_ARM
        std::cout << "ARM " << _M_ARM << " \n";
    #elif _M_ARM64
        std::cout << "ARM64 " << _M_ARM64 << " \n";
    #endif
#endif

You can find out more on how to use it here

There's nothing standard. Brian Hook documented a bunch of these in his "Portable Open Source Harness", and even tries to make them into something coherent and usable (ymmv regarding that). See the posh.h header on this site:

• http://hookatooka.com/poshlib/

Note, the link above may require you to enter some bogus userid/password due to a DOS attack some time ago.

There's a list of the #defines here. There was a previous highly voted answer that included this link but it was deleted by a mod presumably due to SO's "answers must have code" rule. So here's a random sample. Follow the link for the full list.

AMD64

Type	Macro	Description
Identification	__amd64__ __amd64 __x86_64__ __x86_64	Defined by GNU C and Sun Studio
Identification	_M_X64 _M_AMD64	Defined by Visual Studio

If you need a fine-grained detection of CPU features, the best approach is to ship also a CPUID program which outputs to stdout or some "cpu_config.h" file the set of features supported by the CPU. Then you integrate that program with your build process.