How to count the number of arguments passed to a function that accepts a variable number of arguments?

You can't. You have to manage for the caller to indicate the number of arguments somehow. You can:

• Pass the number of arguments as the first variable
• Require the last variable argument to be null, zero or whatever
• Have the first argument describe what is expected (eg. the printf format string dictates what arguments should follow)

You can let the preprocessor help you cheat using this strategy, stolen and tweaked from another answer:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdarg.h>

#define PP_NARG(...) \
         PP_NARG_(__VA_ARGS__,PP_RSEQ_N())
#define PP_NARG_(...) \
         PP_128TH_ARG(__VA_ARGS__)
#define PP_128TH_ARG( \
          _1, _2, _3, _4, _5, _6, _7, _8, _9,_10, \
         _11,_12,_13,_14,_15,_16,_17,_18,_19,_20, \
         _21,_22,_23,_24,_25,_26,_27,_28,_29,_30, \
         _31,_32,_33,_34,_35,_36,_37,_38,_39,_40, \
         _41,_42,_43,_44,_45,_46,_47,_48,_49,_50, \
         _51,_52,_53,_54,_55,_56,_57,_58,_59,_60, \
         _61,_62,_63,_64,_65,_66,_67,_68,_69,_70, \
         _71,_72,_73,_74,_75,_76,_77,_78,_79,_80, \
         _81,_82,_83,_84,_85,_86,_87,_88,_89,_90, \
         _91,_92,_93,_94,_95,_96,_97,_98,_99,_100, \
         _101,_102,_103,_104,_105,_106,_107,_108,_109,_110, \
         _111,_112,_113,_114,_115,_116,_117,_118,_119,_120, \
         _121,_122,_123,_124,_125,_126,_127,N,...) N
#define PP_RSEQ_N() \
         127,126,125,124,123,122,121,120, \
         119,118,117,116,115,114,113,112,111,110, \
         109,108,107,106,105,104,103,102,101,100, \
         99,98,97,96,95,94,93,92,91,90, \
         89,88,87,86,85,84,83,82,81,80, \
         79,78,77,76,75,74,73,72,71,70, \
         69,68,67,66,65,64,63,62,61,60, \
         59,58,57,56,55,54,53,52,51,50, \
         49,48,47,46,45,44,43,42,41,40, \
         39,38,37,36,35,34,33,32,31,30, \
         29,28,27,26,25,24,23,22,21,20, \
         19,18,17,16,15,14,13,12,11,10, \
         9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1,0

void _variad(size_t argc, ...);
#define variad(...) _variad(PP_NARG(__VA_ARGS__), __VA_ARGS__)

void _variad(size_t argc, ...) {
    va_list ap;
    va_start(ap, argc);
    for (int i = 0; i < argc; i++) {
        printf("%d ", va_arg(ap, int));
    }
    printf("\n");
    va_end(ap);
}

int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
    variad(2, 4, 6, 8, 10);
    return 0;
}

There's a few clever tricks here.

1) Instead of calling the variadic function directly, you're calling a macro that counts the arguments and passes the argument count as the first argument to the function. The end result of the preprocessor on main looks like:

_variad(5, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10);

2) PP_NARG is a clever macro to count arguments.

The workhorse here is PP_128TH_ARG. It returns its 128th argument, by ignoring the first 127 arguments (named arbitrarily _1 _2 _3 etc.), naming the 128th argument N, and defining the result of the macro to be N.

PP_NARG invokes PP_128TH_ARG with __VA_ARGS__ concatenated with PP_RSEQ_N, a reversed sequence of numbers counting from 127 down to 0.

If you provide no arguments, the 128th value of PP_RSEQ_N is 0. If you pass one argument to PP_NARG, then that argument will be passed to PP_128TH_ARG as _1; _2 will be 127, and the 128th argument to PP_128TH_ARG will be 1. Thus, each argument in __VA_ARGS__ bumps PP_RSEQ_N over by one, leaving the correct answer in the 128th slot.

(Apparently 127 arguments is the maximum C allows.)

If you have a C99 compliant compiler (including the preprocessor) you can circumvent this problem by declaring a macro that computes the number of arguments for you. Doing this yourself is a bit tricky, you may use P99_VA_ARGS from the P99 macro package to achieve this.