Chapter 4

Macro Processors

Source
Macro Expanded Compiler or obj
Code
(with macro)
Processor Code Assembler

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4.1 Basic Macro Processor Functions
4.1.1 Macro Definition and Expansion
 Fig. 4.1 shows an example of a SIC/XE program
using macro instructions.
 RDBUFF and WRBUFF
 MACRO and MEND
 RDBUFF is name
 Parameters of the macro instruction, each parameter
begins with the character &.
 Macro invocation statement and the arguments to be
used in expanding the macro.
 Fig. 4.2 shows the output that would be generated.

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Source Expanded source
STRG MACRO .
STA DATA1 .
STB DATA2 .
STX DATA3
MEND
.
STRG
.
STRG .
{
STA
STB
STX
DATA1
DATA2
DATA3

. STA DATA1
.

.
{
STB
STX
DATA2
DATA3

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4.1.2 Macro Processor Algorithm
and Data Structures
 Two-pass macro processor
 All macro definitions are processed during the first pass.
 All macro invocation statements are expanded during
the second pass.
 Two-pass macro processor would not allow the body of
one macro instruction to contain definitions of other
macros.
 Such definitions of macros by other macros Fig.
4.3

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4.1.2 Macro Processor Algorithm
and Data Structures

 A one-pass macro processor that can alternate

between macro definition and macro expansion.
 The definition of a macro must appear in the source
program before any statements that invoke that
macro.
 Inconvenience of the programmer.
 Macro definitions are stored in DEFTAB
 Comment lines are not entered the DEFTAB.

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4.1.2 Macro Processor Algorithm
and Data Structures

 The macro names are entered into NAMTAB, NAMTAB

contains two pointers to the beginning and the end of
the definition in DEFTAB
 The third data structure is an argument table ARGTAB,
which is used during the expansion of macro invocations.
 The arguments are stored in ARGTAB according to their
position in the argument list.

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4.1.2 Macro Processor Algorithm
and Data Structures
 Fig. 4.4 shows positions of the contents of these
tables during the processing.
 Parameter &INDEV -> Argument ?1
 Parameter &BUFADR -> Argument ?2
 When the ?n notation is recognized in a line form
DEFTAB, a simple indexing operation supplies the
proper argument form ARGTAB.

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4.1.2 Macro Processor Algorithm
and Data Structures
 The macro processor algorithm itself is presented
in Fig. 4.5.
 The procedure PROCESSING
 The procedure DEFINE
 Called when the beginning of a macro definition is recognized,
makes the appropriate entries in DEFTAB and NAMTAB.
 The procedure EXPAND
 Called to set up the argument values in ARGTAB and expand a
macro invocation statement.
 The procedure GETLINE
 Called at several points in the algorithm, gets the next line to be
processed.
 EXPANDING is set to TRUE or FALSE.
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4.1.2 Macro Processor Algorithm
and Data Structures

 To solve the problem is Fig. 4.3, our DEFINE

procedure maintains a counter named LEVEL.
 MACRO directive is read, the value of LEVEL is inc. by 1.
 MEND directive is read, the value of LEVEL is dec. by 1.

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4.2 Machine-Independent Macro Processor
Features
4.2.1 Concatenation of Macro Parameters
 Most macro processors allow parameters to be
concatenated with other character strings.
 A program contains one series of variables named by
the symbols XA1, XA2, XA3, …, another series named
by XB1, XB2, XB3, …, etc.
 The body of the macro definition might contain a
statement like
SUM Macro &ID
LDA X&ID1
LDA X&ID2
LDA X&ID3
LDA X&IDS
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4.2.1 Concatenation of Macro Parameters

 The beginning of the macro parameter is identified by

the starting symbol &; however, the end of the
parameter is not marked.
 The problem is that the end of the parameter is not
marked. Thus X&ID1 may mean “X” + ID + “1” or “X” +
ID1.
 In which the parameter &ID is concatenated after the
character string X and before the character string 1.

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4.2.1 Concatenation of Macro Parameters
 Most macro processors deal with this problem by
providing a special concatenation operator (Fig. 4.6).
 In SIC or SIC/XE, -> is used

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4.2.2 Generation of Unique Labels
 As we discussed in Section 4.1, it is in general not
possible for the body of a macro instruction to
contain labels of usual kind.
 WRBUFF (line 135) is called twice.
 Fig. 4.7 illustrates one techniques for generating unique
labels within a macro expansion.
 Labels used within the macro body begin with the
special character $.
 Each symbol beginning with $ has been modified by
replacing $ with $AA.

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4.2.2 Generation of Unique Labels

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4.2.2 Generation of Unique Labels

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4.2.3 Conditional Macro Expansion
 The use of one type of conditional macro
expansion statement is illustrated in Fig. 4.8.
 The definition of RDBUFF has two additional
parameters: &EOR and &MAXLTH.
 Macro processor directive SET
 This SET statement assigns the value 1 to &EORCK.
 The symbol &EORCK is a macro time variables, which
can be used to store working values during the macro
expansion.
 RDBUFF F3,BUF,RECL,04,2048
 RDBUFF 0E,BUFFER,LENGTH,,80
 RDBUFF F1,BUFF,RLENG,04

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4.2.3 Conditional Macro Expansion
 A different type of conditional macro expansion
statement is illustrated in Fig. 4.9.
 There is a list (00, 03, 04) corresponding to &EOR.
 %NITEMS is a macro processor function that returns as
its value the number of members in an argument list.
 %NITEMS(&EOR) is equal to 3.
 &CTR is used to count the number of times the lines
following the WHILE statement have been generated.
 Thus on the first iteration the expression &EOR[&CTR]
on line 65 has the value 00 &EOR[1]; on the second
iteration it has the value 03, and so on.
 How to implement nesting WHILE structures?

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4.2.4 Keyword Macro Parameters
 Positional parameters
 Parameters and arguments were associated with each
other according to their positions in the macro
prototype and the macro invocation statements.
 A certain macro instruction GENER has 10 possible
parameters.
GENER MACRO &1, &2, &type, …, &channel, &10

GENER , , DIRECT, , , , , , 3

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4.2.4 Keyword Macro Parameters
 Keyword parameters
 Each argument value is written with a keyword that
names the corresponding parameter.
 Arguments may appear in any order.

GENER TYPE=DIRECT, CHANNEL=3

parameter=argument
 Fig. 4.10 shows a version of the RDBUFF using keyword.

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4.3 Macro Processor Design Options
4.3.1 Recursive Macro Expansion

 In Fig. 4.3 we presented an example of the

definition of one macro instruction by another.
 Fig. 4.11(a) shows an example - Dealt with the
invocation of one macro by another.
 The purpose of RDCHAR Fig. 4.11(b) is to read one
character from a specified device into register A,
taking care of the necessary test-and-wait loop.

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4.3.1 Recursive Macro Expansion
 Fig. 4.11(c), applied to the macro invocation statement
RDBUFF BUFFER, LENGTH, F1
 The procedure EXPAND would be called when the macro
was recognized.
 The arguments from the macro invocation would be
entered into ARGTAB as follows:

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4.3.1 Recursive Macro Expansion
 The Boolean variable EXPANDING would be set to TRUE,
and expansion of the macro invocation statement would be
begin.
 The processing would proceed normally until line 50, which
contains a statement invoking RDCHAR. At that point,
PROCESSLINE would call EXPAND again.
 This time, ARGTAB would look like

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4.3.1 Recursive Macro Expansion
 At the end of this expansion, however, a problem
would appear. When the end of the definition of
RDCHAR was recognized, EXPANDING would be
set to FALSE.
 Thus the macro processor would “forget” that it
had been in middle of expanding a macro when it
encountered the RDCHAR statement.
 Use a Stack to save ARGTAB.
 Use a counter to identify the expansion.

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Pages 208-209, MASM

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