Here's a relatively common macro pattern:
struct Thing
bytes 1, Type
end_struct
(See also pret's table macros, for example.)
Problem: you can forget to close them, and they rely on some global state which makes the macro's implementation icky.
I think I'd like a way to do something like this:
struct Thing {
bytes 1, Type
}(Braces are the standard for blocks in current systems languages, and while in principle they conflict with interpolation syntax, a brace at EOL would always be a syntax error so we can try giving it semantics, though maybe only in raw lines.)
Tentative syntax:
MACRO struct [body] ; The macro expects a braced body, referred to within as `body`.
; ...setup...
body ; Used like a macro.
; ...teardown...
ENDM
(This means that a macro's body has to be valid code that does not get specially processed. I think that's better for external tooling e.g. syntax highlighters, and any fancier processing could use a """multi-line string""" instead.)
Here's a relatively common macro pattern:
(See also pret's table macros, for example.)
Problem: you can forget to close them, and they rely on some global state which makes the macro's implementation icky.
I think I'd like a way to do something like this:
(Braces are the standard for blocks in current systems languages, and while in principle they conflict with interpolation syntax, a brace at EOL would always be a syntax error so we can try giving it semantics, though maybe only in raw lines.)
Tentative syntax:
(This means that a macro's body has to be valid code that does not get specially processed. I think that's better for external tooling e.g. syntax highlighters, and any fancier processing could use a
"""multi-line string"""instead.)