I think that you can solve this problem simply by exerting more careful control over your possible code paths. For example, in the case where you're checking if the number of the player's lives has dropped below one, why not check only when the player loses a life, instead of every frame?

void subtractPlayerLife() { // Generic life losing stuff, such as mLives -= 1 if (mLives < 1) { // Do specific stuff. } } 

This, in turn, assumes that subtractPlayerLife would only be called on specific occasions, which would perhaps result from conditions that you must check every frame (collisions, perhaps).

By carefully controlling how your code executes, you can avoid messy solutions like static booleans and also cut down bit-by-bit on how much code is executed in a single frame.

If there's something that just seems impossible to refactor, and you really need to only check once, then state (like an enum) or static booleans are the way to go. To avoid declaring the statics yourself, you can use the following trick:

#define ONE_TIME_IF(condition, statement) \ static bool once##__LINE__##__FILE__; if(!once##__LINE__##__FILE__ && condition) { once##__LINE__##__FILE__ = true; \ statement \ } 

which would make the following code:

while (true) { ONE_TIME_IF(1 > 0, printf("something\n"); printf("something else\n"); ) } 

print something and something else only once. It doesn't yield the best looking code, but it works. I'm also pretty sure there's a way to improve it, by either cutting down on the length of the first line or by better ensuring unique variable names.

Despite this, I strongly recommend better controlling your code flow first, and using this #define as a last resort, or for debug purposes only.

I think that you can solve this problem simply by exerting more careful control over your possible code paths. For example, in the case where you're checking if the number of the player's lives has dropped below one, why not check only when the player loses a life, instead of every frame?

void subtractPlayerLife() { // Generic life losing stuff, such as mLives -= 1 if (mLives < 1) { // Do specific stuff. } } 

This, in turn, assumes that subtractPlayerLife would only be called on specific occasions, which would perhaps result from conditions that you must check every frame (collisions, perhaps).

By carefully controlling how your code executes, you can avoid messy solutions like static booleans and also cut down bit-by-bit on how much code is executed in a single frame.

If there's something that just seems impossible to refactor, and you really need to only check once, then state (like an enum) or static booleans are the way to go. To avoid declaring the statics yourself, you can use the following trick:

#define ONE_TIME_IF(condition, statement) \ static bool once##__LINE__##__FILE__; \ if(!once##__LINE__##__FILE__ && condition) \  { \  once##__LINE__##__FILE__ = true; \ statement \ } 

which would make the following code:

while (true) { ONE_TIME_IF(1 > 0, printf("something\n"); printf("something else\n"); ) } 

print something and something else only once. It doesn't yield the best looking code, but it works. I'm also pretty sure there are ways to improve it, perhaps by better ensuring unique variable names. This #define will only work once during the runtime though. There is no way to reset it, and there is no way to save it.

Despite the trick, I strongly recommend better controlling your code flow first, and using this #define as a last resort, or for debug purposes only.