Allow macro expansion on default macro value

0 votes
asked Jan 4, 2018 in Wanted features by Anthony-Gaudino (5,720 points)
edited Jan 6, 2018 by Anthony-Gaudino

When using default macro arguments, we must add the value in comma ("" or '') this means that we can't use a macro as the default value.

For example, this gives a syntax error:

!define FOO myclass

!define BAR(name = FOO) class name

This also won't work: 

!define FOO "myclass"

!define BAR(name = FOO) class name

Actually I think that the proper way to handle it would be to add  the string as is and then check if the resulting string has any macro, if yes, then expand those, if the resulting string still contains macros, then expand those, and keep doing it until there's no more expansions.

So, this example:

!define ABC "myclass"

!define FOO ABC as ABC

!define BAR(name = "FOO") class name

BAR

Would result in: class "myclass" as "myclass"

1 Answer

0 votes
answered Jan 31, 2018 by mgrol (3,150 points)

Hi,

your idea sounds interesting. Your current problem is really that you could easily run into a recursion problem.

@startuml
!define BAR(cname="FOO") class cname
!define FOO ABC
!define ABC "myClass"

BAR()
BAR(yourClass)

myClass <|-- A
yourClass <|-- myClass
@enduml

This works unless you try to use the preprocessing feature "name##text". Your difficulty could be that you mix submacros and code words (here "as").

BR,

Michael

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