Use of #pragma in C

#pragma is for compiler directives that are machine-specific or operating-system-specific, i.e. it tells the compiler to do something, set some option, take some action, override some default, etc. that may or may not apply to all machines and operating systems.

See msdn for more info.

#pragma is used to do something implementation-specific in C, i.e. be pragmatic for the current context rather than ideologically dogmatic.

The one I regularly use is #pragma pack(1) where I'm trying to squeeze more out of my memory space on embedded solutions, with arrays of structures that would otherwise end up with 8 byte alignment.

Pity we don't have a #dogma yet. That would be fun ;)