Compiler directive

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In computer science, a compiler directive is data embedded in source code by programmers to tell compilers some intention about compilation. A compiler directive often tells the compiler how to compile; other source code tells the compiler what to compile.

Examples

• A compiler directive could tell the compiler whether to do range checking on array indexes or trust that the programmer has not written code that can cause an error.
• An #include preprocessor directive in C tells the compiler to insert another text file at the current point.
• The #pragma once construct in some implementations of C serves a purpose similar to that of #include guards.

In Ada, compiler directives are called pragmas (short for "pragmatic information"). In other languages, such as Turbo Pascal, they are called significant comments.

For example strict - Perl pragma to restrict unsafe constructs

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