OnlyGenerics In C

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

C doesn’t have templates, but it does have the preprocessor. If you’re careful, you can get something that feels like std::vector<T> without switching languages. It’s not perfect and it’s not type theory, but it is surprisingly usable.

This post is about that: cheap macro tricks that give you “templated” types in plain C.

The Core Trick

You first define a generic backing struct. Then you create a macro that expands to a type‑specific struct. That macro is your “template”.

Templates on Siddharth Mishra

OnlyGenerics In C

Introduction

The Core Trick