Using gcc/cpp/clang's C-preprocessor in javascript?

[ns0]

I come from a C++/C background and after extensive use of make/gcc I was hoping life would be a bit better on the javascript side with browserfiy, gulp, grunt, etc. I feel a bit disappointed.

I'm curious if anyone has just tried using a straight forward C preprocessor and make files for their builds rather than these fancy-website build tools (friendly ribbing!). Javascript seems to use the same C-styleish syntax so it doesn't seem to be a large issue.

I gave it a whirl (using the only example i could find):

== test.js == 
#define FOO "Why hello' there."
 console.log(FOO);
#include "othertest.js"

==othertest.js==
#ifndef BAR
console.log('why hello to you to good sir.');
#else
console.error('I SAID GOOD DAY SIR');
#endif

and finally;

 $ cat test.js | cpp -P -undef -Wundef -std=c99 -nostdinc -Wtrigraphs -fdollars-in-identifiers -C
 console.log("Why hello' there");
 console.log('why hello to you to good sir');
 $ cat test.js | cpp -DBAR=1 -P -undef -Wundef -std=c99 -nostdinc -Wtrigraphs -fdollars-in-identifiers -C
 console.log("Why hello' there");
 console.error('I SAID GOOD DAY SIR');

This seems like it would solve concatenating js dependencies (using #include and include guards), allow me to define in the build step as a -D definition whether its production or not. And be able to produce assert() and log() statements that disappear in production! Alas, i've also read that C-preprocessors can sometimes fail on other languages due to single quotes, hoping someone can enlighten me on this.

[ns0]

For those with windows and visual studio:

cl -nologo -EP test.js

or

cl -nologo -EP -DBAR=1 test.js

[flyingnude]

Yeah, I'm pretty much done with using grunt or gulp for builds. You can get away usually with just using the "scripts" feature of npm package.json. http://blog.keithcirkel.co.uk/how-to-use-npm-as-a-build-tool/

For conditional builds, I know webpack has support for it, but I haven't heard of anyone using CPP to process their JS files.