You can do that since C11 using _Generic. https://en.cppreference.com/w/c/language/generic https://en.cppreference.com/w/c/language/generic: #include <math.h

You can do that since C11 using _Generic. https://en.cppreference.com/w/c/language/generic https://en.cppreference.com/w/c/language/generic: #include <math.h> #include <stdio.h> // Possible implementation of the tgmath.h macro cbrt #define cbrt(X) _Generic((X), \ long double: cbrtl, \ default: cbrt, \ float: cbrtf \ )(X) int main(void) { double x = 8.0; const float y = 3.375; printf("cbrt(8.0) = %f\n", cbrt(x)); // selects the default cbrt printf("cbrtf(3.375) = %f\n", cbrt(y)); // converts const float to float, // then selects cbrtf }