From: Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>
To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Is it possible for a macro to expand to nothing?
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:24:47 +0000 (UTC) [thread overview]
Message-ID: <heer2f$2qo$1@colin2.muc.de> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 87my2dc8d7.fsf@galatea.local
Pascal J. Bourguignon <pjb@informatimago.com> wrote:
> "Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com> writes:
>>> >> you can do that by producing nil and then using ,@ inside a
>>> >> backquote. IOW, instead of inserting nil, you splice it in,
>>> >> which means inserting nothing.
>>> That wouldn't work, backquote is a quote.
>> Sorry, but it works just fine. I do this all the time.
> No, it doesn't:
It worked fine for me.
> (defmacro ifdef (expr &rest body)
> (and (eval expr) `(progn ,@body)))
My definition of `ifdef' is:
(defmacro ifdef (condition form)
(if (eval condition)
`,form))
, which though lacking an &rest argument, could easily be enhanced to
take one.
[ .... ]
> I didn't say that it didn't work inside titi. I said that it was a bad
> idea to take the habit of giving an invalid form to a macro to get an
> invalid form from it.
If the form doesn't cause a runtime error, it's not invalid. ;-) The
reason I want this functionality is to optimise a VERY VERY tight loop.
I believe that the optimisation isn't feasible under XEmacs, so I want to
be able to put things for XEmacs inside Lisp equivalents of "#ifdef".
Even inserting an invocation of `(ignore)' seems to make a difference.
As far as I remember, anyway. With Drew's mechanism, one doesn't have to
rely on the byte-compiler optimising an empty `progn' or a frivolous
`progn' away.
> Notice also my alternative solution uses macroexpand. This is a clue
> that if you want to go that way, you should use a function rather than
> a macro:
> (defun %parenthesized-ifdef (expr forms)
> (if expr
> '()
> `((progn ,@forms))))
> (defmacro titi (fn)
> `(defun ,fn ()
> (setq bar 1)
> ,@(%parenthesized-ifdef baz '((setq bar 2)))))
> (macroexpand '(titi foo))
> --> (defun foo nil (setq bar 1) (progn (setq bar 2)))
Yes, but that `progn' is ugly.
--
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2009-11-23 20:24 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 43+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2009-11-23 14:56 Is it possible for a macro to expand to nothing? Alan Mackenzie
2009-11-23 16:03 ` Drew Adams
[not found] ` <mailman.11344.1258992201.2239.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2009-11-23 16:31 ` Alan Mackenzie
2009-11-23 17:29 ` Drew Adams
2009-11-23 18:33 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2009-11-23 18:51 ` Drew Adams
[not found] ` <mailman.11354.1259004470.2239.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2009-11-23 20:08 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2009-11-23 20:24 ` Alan Mackenzie [this message]
2009-11-23 22:09 ` Drew Adams
[not found] ` <mailman.11367.1259014174.2239.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2009-11-23 23:55 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2009-11-24 0:55 ` Alan Mackenzie
2009-11-24 9:42 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2009-11-24 10:45 ` Alan Mackenzie
2009-11-24 11:14 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2009-11-24 16:39 ` Alan Mackenzie
2009-11-24 19:17 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2009-11-25 14:13 ` Jeff Clough
[not found] ` <mailman.11467.1259158369.2239.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2009-11-26 6:53 ` Alan Mackenzie
2009-11-26 11:11 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2009-11-26 11:52 ` Lennart Borgman
[not found] ` <mailman.11564.1259236392.2239.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2009-11-26 12:16 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2009-11-26 12:43 ` Lennart Borgman
2009-11-27 8:32 ` Kevin Rodgers
[not found] ` <mailman.11626.1259310779.2239.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2009-11-27 13:15 ` Alan Mackenzie
2009-11-27 13:52 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2009-11-27 16:57 ` Alan Mackenzie
2009-11-27 17:09 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2009-11-27 17:19 ` Helmut Eller
2009-11-27 17:45 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2009-11-27 23:17 ` Tim X
2009-11-28 0:06 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2009-11-28 8:29 ` Alan Mackenzie
2009-11-28 10:25 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2009-11-28 12:57 ` Thierry Volpiatto
[not found] ` <mailman.11699.1259413441.2239.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2009-11-29 0:54 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2009-11-24 11:56 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
[not found] ` <mailman.11352.1258997403.2239.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2009-11-23 18:42 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2009-11-23 20:12 ` Drew Adams
[not found] ` <mailman.11356.1259007263.2239.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2009-11-23 20:21 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2009-11-23 22:09 ` Drew Adams
[not found] ` <mailman.11368.1259014177.2239.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2009-11-24 0:03 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2009-11-23 20:09 ` Alan Mackenzie
2009-11-23 16:49 ` Jeff Clough
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