Macro (computer Science) - Text Substitution Macros

Text Substitution Macros

Languages such as C and assembly language have rudimentary macro systems, implemented as preprocessors to the compiler or assembler. C preprocessor macros work by simple textual search-and-replace at the token, rather than the character, level. A classic use of macros is in the computer typesetting system TeX and its derivatives, where most of the functionality is based on macros. MacroML is an experimental system that seeks to reconcile static typing and macro systems. Nemerle has typed syntax macros, and one productive way to think of these syntax macros is as a multi-stage computation. Other examples:

  • m4 is a sophisticated, stand-alone, macro processor.
  • TRAC
  • Macro Extension TAL, accompanying Template Attribute Language
  • SMX, for web pages
  • ML/1 Macro Language One
  • The General Purpose Macroprocessor is a contextual pattern matching macro processor, which could be described as a combination of regular expressions, EBNF and AWK
  • SAM76
  • minimac, a concatenative macro processor.
  • troff and nroff, for typesetting and formatting Unix manpages.

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