Unity’s support for the C# language includes the use of directives, which allow you to selectively include or exclude code from compilation, based on whether certain scripting symbols are defined or not defined.
You can read more broadly about how these directives work in C# in Microsoft’s user documentation on C# preprocessor directives.
Unity has a range of built-in scripting symbols which represent options that you can use in your scriptsA piece of code that allows you to create your own Components, trigger game events, modify Component properties over time and respond to user input in any way you like. More info
See in Glossary to selectively include or exclude portions of code from compilation.
For example, the built-in scripting symbol that’s set when a player is built for Windows standalone platform is UNITY_STANDALONE_WIN. You can check whether this symbol is defined using a special type of if statement using the following query:
#if UNITY_STANDALONE_WIN
Debug.Log("Standalone Windows");
#endif
The hash (#) character in front of the if and endif indicates that these statements are “directives”, and they’re handled during the compilation process, rather than at runtime.
In the above example, the Debug line is only included for compilation in the Windows standalone build of the project. When compiled in the Unity Editor or in other target builds, it’s omitted entirely. This is different to using a regular if .. then .. else structure, which might only bypass the execution of certain part of code at runtime.
There are a number of built-in scripting symbols which allow you to selectively compile or omit code based on the selected Platform, the Editor Version, and other miscellaneous system environment scenarios. These built-in scripting symbols are listed below.
In addition, you can define your own scripting symbols either using the Unity Editor UI(User Interface) Allows a user to interact with your application. Unity currently supports three UI systems. More info
See in Glossary, via scripting, or via an asset file, which allows you to control compilation of portions of your code based on arbitrary definitions. For more information, check Custom scripting symbols.
*Note: Scripting symbols are sometimes referred to as define symbols,preprocessor defines, or just defines.
Unity automatically defines certain scripting symbols based on the authoring and build target platform. These are as follows:
| Define | Function |
|---|---|
| UNITY_EDITOR | Scripting symbol to call Unity Editor scripts from your game code. |
| UNITY_EDITOR_WIN | Scripting symbol for Editor code on Windows. |
| UNITY_EDITOR_OSX | Scripting symbol for Editor code in macOS. |
| UNITY_EDITOR_LINUX | Scripting symbol for Editor code on Linux. |
| UNITY_EMBEDDED_LINUX | Scripting symbol for embedded Linux. |
| UNITY_QNX | Scripting symbol for QNX. |
| UNITY_STANDALONE_OSX | Scripting symbol to compile or execute code specifically for macOS (including Universal, PPC and Intel architectures). |
| UNITY_STANDALONE_WIN | Scripting symbol for compiling/executing code specifically for Windows standalone applications. |
| UNITY_STANDALONE_LINUX | Scripting symbol for compiling/executing code specifically for Linux standalone applications. |
| UNITY_SERVER | Scripting symbol for compiling/executing code for a dedicated server (macOS, Windows or Linux). |
| UNITY_IOS | Scripting symbol for compiling/executing code for the iOS platform. |
| UNITY_IPHONE | Deprecated. Use UNITY_IOS instead. |
| UNITY_VISIONOS | Scripting symbol for compiling/executing code for the visionOS platform. |
| UNITY_ANDROID | Scripting symbol for the Android platform. |
| UNITY_TVOS | Scripting symbol for the Apple TV platform. |
| UNITY_WSA | Scripting symbol for Universal Windows Platform. Additionally, NETFX_CORE is defined when compiling C# files against .NET Core and using .NET scripting backendA framework that powers scripting in Unity. Unity supports three different scripting backends depending on target platform: Mono, .NET and IL2CPP. Universal Windows Platform, however, supports only two: .NET and IL2CPP. More info See in Glossary. |
| UNITY_WSA_10_0 | Scripting symbol for Universal Windows Platform. Additionally WINDOWS_UWP is defined when compiling C# files against .NET Core. |
| UNITY_WEBGL | Scripting symbol for WebGLA JavaScript API that renders 2D and 3D graphics in a web browser. The Unity WebGL build option allows Unity to publish content as JavaScript programs which use HTML5 technologies and the WebGL rendering API to run Unity content in a web browser. More info See in Glossary. |
| UNITY_ANALYTICS | Scripting symbol for calling Unity AnalyticsAbbreviation of Unity Analytics See in Glossary methods from your game code. Version 5.2 and above. |
| UNITY_ASSERTIONS | Scripting symbol for assertions control process. |
| UNITY_64 | Scripting symbol for 64-bit platforms. |
| UNITY_CLOUD_BUILD | Scripting symbol for Cloud builds. |
Unity automatically defines certain scripting symbols based on the version of the Unity Editor that you’re currently using.
Given a version number X.Y.Z (for example, 2019.4.14), Unity exposes three global scripting symbols in the following formats: UNITY_X, UNITY_X_Y and UNITY_X_Y_Z.
Here is an example of scripting symbols exposed in Unity 2019.4.14:
| Define | Function |
|---|---|
| UNITY_2019 | Scripting symbol for the release version of Unity 2019, exposed in every 2019.Y.Z release. |
| UNITY_2019_4 | Scripting symbol for the major version of Unity 2019.4, exposed in every 2019.4.Z release. |
| UNITY_2019_4_14 | Scripting symbol for the minor version of Unity 2019.4.14. |
You can also compile code selectively based on the earliest version of Unity required to compile or execute
a section of code snippet. Following the same version format as above (X.Y), Unity exposes one global #define in the format UNITY_X_Y_OR_NEWER, that you can use for this purpose.
The other scripting symbols Unity defines are:
| Define | Function |
|---|---|
| CSHARP_7_3_OR_NEWER | Defined when building scripts with support for C# 7.3 or newer. |
| ENABLE_MONO | Scripting backend #define for Mono. |
| ENABLE_IL2CPP | Scripting backend #define for IL2CPPA Unity-developed scripting back-end which you can use as an alternative to Mono when building projects for some platforms. More info See in Glossary. |
| ENABLE_VR | Defined when the target build platform supports VRVirtual Reality More info See in Glossary. Doesn’t imply that VR is currently enabled or that the necessary plug-insA set of code created outside of Unity that creates functionality in Unity. There are two kinds of plug-ins you can use in Unity: Managed plug-ins (managed .NET assemblies created with tools like Visual Studio) and Native plug-ins (platform-specific native code libraries). More info See in Glossary and packages needed to support VR are installed. |
| NET_2_0 | Defined when building scripts against .NET 2.0 API compatibility level on Mono and IL2CPP. |
| NET_2_0_SUBSET | Defined when building scripts against .NET 2.0 Subset API compatibility level on Mono and IL2CPP. |
| NET_LEGACY | Defined when building scripts against .NET 2.0 or .NET 2.0 Subset API compatibility level on Mono and IL2CPP. |
| NET_4_6 | Defined when building scripts against .NET 4.x API compatibility level on Mono and IL2CPP. |
| NET_STANDARD_2_0 | Defined when building scripts against .NET Standard 2.0 API compatibility level on Mono and IL2CPP. |
| NET_STANDARD_2_1 | Defined when building scripts against .NET Standard 2.1 API compatibility level on Mono and IL2CPP. |
| NET_STANDARD | Defined when building scripts against .NET Standard 2.1 API compatibility level on Mono and IL2CPP. |
| NETSTANDARD2_1 | Defined when building scripts against .NET Standard 2.1 API compatibility level on Mono and IL2CPP. |
| NETSTANDARD | Defined when building scripts against .NET Standard 2.1 API compatibility level on Mono and IL2CPP. |
| ENABLE_WINMD_SUPPORT | Defined when Windows Runtime support is enabled on IL2CPP. For more information, refer to Windows Runtime Support. |
| ENABLE_INPUT_SYSTEM | Defined when the Input System package is enabled in Player SettingsSettings that let you set various player-specific options for the final game built by Unity. More info See in Glossary. |
| ENABLE_LEGACY_INPUT_MANAGER | Defined when the legacy Input ManagerSettings where you can define all the different input axes, buttons and controls for your project. More info See in Glossary is enabled in Player Settings. |
| DEVELOPMENT_BUILD | Defined when your script is running in a Player which was built with the Development Build option enabled. This define only reflects whether the development build option was enabled at the time of the build. To know whether your script is running in the development build mode, use Debug.isDebugBuild. __DEVELOPMENT\_BUILD__ isn’t sufficient to determine whether you’re currently running in a development build because most platforms allow changing between development and non-development build without rebuilding the project. However, on some platforms, Unity doesn’t support switching between development and non-development builds in the Editor and requires you to switch after the build is complete. For example, on Windows, you can choose the Create Visual Studio solution option to choose whether you want a development or non-development build in Visual Studio. Switching in Visual Studio doesn’t recompile your scripts and therefore, it won’t re-evaluate scripting defines. You can also switch from the final game build to a development build by swapping UnityPlayer.dll in the game build with the one from a development build for debugging live game builds. |
The following example shows how to test your precompiled code. It also prints a message based on the platform you’ve selected for your target build.
To test the compiled code:
using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;
public class PlatformDefines : MonoBehaviour {
void Start () {
#if UNITY_EDITOR
Debug.Log("Unity Editor");
#endif
#if UNITY_IOS
Debug.Log("iOS");
#endif
#if UNITY_STANDALONE_OSX
Debug.Log("Standalone OSX");
#endif
#if UNITY_STANDALONE_WIN
Debug.Log("Standalone Windows");
#endif
}
}
Note: In C# you can use a CONDITIONAL attribute which is a more clean, less error-prone way of stripping out functions. For more information, refer to ConditionalAttribute Class. Common Unity callbacks such as Start(), Update(), LateUpdate(), FixedUpdate(), Awake() aren’t affected by this attribute because they’re called directly from the engine and, for performance reasons, it doesn’t take them into account.
In addition to the basic #if compiler directive, you can also use a multiway test in C#:
#if UNITY_EDITOR
Debug.Log("Unity Editor");
#elif UNITY_IOS
Debug.Log("Unity iOS");
#else
Debug.Log("Any other platform");
#endif