I get your point. The assembler macro facility is more like a facility for writing extensions to the assembler than it is like the C macro preprocessor. That ability to write a macro that is integrated in its processing with the main passes of the assembler -- yes, that is very cool.
In C I can write a macro FOO(bar) that expands out into C code -- shorthand, in other words. But an assembler macro has the ability to be more like an extension of the assembler itself, not simply a shorthand for some more wordy assembler instructions. Charles -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Assembler List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of John Ehrman Sent: Monday, December 11, 2017 12:19 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Macro Processors Charles Mills noted... > Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2017 17:58:15 -0800 > From: Charles Mills <[email protected]> > 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. I agree that PL/I's macro preprocessor is indeed powerful; but it and all other macro facilities I know of lack a key feature of HLASM's conditional assembly and macro facility: an intimate interaction between the base language and the macro language. While the
