The PL/I preprocessor was pretty much a full instantiation of the PL/I compiler that would execute at compile time.
You can write full programs in macro language that execute in the assembler, using AREAD to read the data, the various SET to process the data and PUNCH to output the results. On Sat, 9 Dec 2017 17:58:15 -0800 Charles Mills <[email protected]> wrote: :>C-type macros are both good and bad. They are less powerful than assembler :>macros with their .labels and looping and so forth, but OTOH they :>incorporate the idea of both assembler macros and assembler SET symbols in a :>single construct. C is really a very different sort of language from :>assembler: whereas assembler is line oriented, C is mostly character-stream :>oriented. Assembler type macros would not exactly make sense. :> :>PL/I has a very powerful "macro" (preprocessor, I think they call it) :>facility. I don't know it well at all, but in my impression it is more :>powerful than either assembler or C macros. :> :>COBOL, OTOH ... :> :>Charles :> :> :>-----Original Message----- :>From: IBM Mainframe Assembler List [mailto:[email protected]] :>On Behalf Of Phil Smith :>Sent: Saturday, December 9, 2017 3:38 PM :>To: [email protected] :>Subject: Re: Address of a Literal :> :>I can't help but note that it's pretty funny that people are complaining :>about assembler limitations. When I was a lad, the assembler could barely do :>macros... :>(Of course, so-called "high-level" languages like C should be so lucky as to :>have the power of assembler macros! Their idea of a "macro" is really quite :>primitive.) -- Binyamin Dissen <[email protected]> http://www.dissensoftware.com Director, Dissen Software, Bar & Grill - Israel Should you use the mailblocks package and expect a response from me, you should preauthorize the dissensoftware.com domain. I very rarely bother responding to challenge/response systems, especially those from irresponsible companies.
