No, you don't want the preprocessor output. Consider the following classical program:

# include <stdlib.h>
# include <stdio.h>

int main (int argc, char * argv []) {
    printf ("Hello, world\n");  /* Print 'Hello, world' */
    exit (0);
}
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Assume this is in the file hello.c.

$ gcc -E hello.c | wc -l
   1566
$ gcc -E hello.c | grep -v '^$' | wc -l
    853
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Even with blank lines removed, the 7 line hello.c expands to 853 lines of pre processor output.

Abigail