System Software Module 4

MODULE 4

Macro Processors: Basic macro processor functions, machine dependent and

machine independent macro processor features, macro processor design options.

MACRO PREPROCESSOR

Macro
 A macro (or macro instruction)
– It is simply a notational convenience for the programmer.
– It allows the programmer to write shorthand version of a program
– It represents a commonly used group of statements in the source program.
 For example:
 Suppose a program needs to add two numbers frequently. This requires a sequence
of instructions. We can define and use a macro called SUM, to represent this
sequence of instructions.

SUM MACRO &X,&Y

LDA &X
MOV B
LDA &Y
ADD B
MEND

Macro Preprocessor
 The macro pre-processor(or macro processor) is a system software which replaces
each macro instruction with the corresponding group of source language statements.
This operation is called expanding the macro.
 It does not concern the meaning of the involved statements during macro expansion.
 The design of a macro processor generally is machine independent.

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 System Software Module 4

BASIC MACRO PROCESSOR FUNCTIONS

The fundamental functions common to all macro processors are: ( Code to remember - DIE )
o Macro Definition
o Macro Invocation
o Macro Expansion

Macro Definition
 Macro definitions are typically located at the start of a program.
 A macro definition is enclosed between a macro header statement(MACRO) and a
macro end statement(MEND)
 Format of macro definition
macroname MACRO parameters
:
body
:
MEND

 A macro definition consist of macro prototype statement and body of macro.

 A macro prototype statement declares the name of a macro and its parameters. It has
following format:
macroname MACRO parameters
where macroname indicates the name of macro, MACRO indicates the beginning of
macro definition and parameters indicates the list of formal parameters. parameters is
of the form &parameter1, &parameter2,…Each parameter begins with „&‟. Whenever
we use the term macro prototype it simply means the macro name along with its
parameters.

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 System Software Module 4

 Body of macro consist of statements that will generated as the expansion of macro.
 Consider the following macro definition:
SUM MACRO &X,&Y
LDA &X
MOV B
LDA &Y
ADD B
MEND
Here, the macro named SUM is used to find the sum of two variables passed to it.

Macro Invocation(or Macro Call)

 A macro invocation statement (a macro call) gives the name of the macro instruction
being invoked and the arguments to be used in expanding the macro.
 The format of macro invocation
macroname p1, p2,...pn
 The above defined macro can be called as SUM P,Q

Macro Expansion
 Each macro invocation statement will be expanded into the statements that form the
body of the macro.
 Arguments from the macro invocation are substituted for the parameters in the macro
prototype.
 The arguments and parameters are associated with one another according to their
positions. The first argument in the macro invocation corresponds to the first
parameter in the macro prototype, etc.
 Comment lines within the macro body have been deleted, but comments on individual
statements have been retained. Macro invocation statement itself has been included
as a comment line.
 Consider the example for macro expansion on next page:
In this example, the macro named SUM is defined at the start of the program. This
macro is invoked with the macro call SUM P,Q and the macro is expanded as
LDA &P
MOV B

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 System Software Module 4

LDA &Q
ADD B
MEND
Again the same macro is invoked with the macro call SUM M,N and the macro is expanded
as

LDA &M
MOV B
LDA &N
ADD B
MEND
Figure: Example for macro expansion

Difference between Macro and Subroutine

Macros differ from subroutines in two fundamental aspects:
1. A macro call leads to its expansion, whereas subroutine call leads to its execution. So
there is difference in size and execution efficiency.
2. Statements of the macro body are expanded each time the macro is invoked. But the
statements of the subroutine appear only once, regardless of how many times the
subroutine is called.

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 System Software Module 4

MACRO PROCESSOR ALGORITHM AND DATA STRUCTURES

Two pass macro processor

 It is easy to design a two-pass macro processor in which all macro definitions are
processed during the first pass and all macro invocation statements are expanded
during second pass.
 Such a two pass macro processor cannot handle nested macro definitions. Nested
macros are macros in which definition of one macro contains definition of other
macros.
 Consider the macro definition example given below, which is used to swap two
numbers. The macro named SWAP defines another macro named STORE inside it.
These type of macro are called nested macros.

SWAP MACRO &X,&Y

LDA &X
LDX &Y
STORE MACRO &X,&Y
STA &Y outer macro
STX &X
Inner macro

MEND
MEND

One pass macro processor

 A one-pass macro processor uses only one pass for processing macro definitions and
macro expansions.
 It can handle nested macro definitions.
 To implement one pass macro processor, the definition of a macro must appear in the
source program before any statements that invoke that macro.
Data Structures involved in the design of one pass macro processor
 There are 3 main data structures involved in the design of one pass macro processor:
DEFTAB
NAMTAB
ARGTAB

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 System Software Module 4

Definition table (DEFTAB)

 All the macro definitions in the program are stored in DEFTAB, which includes
macro prototype and macro body statements.
 Comment lines from macro definition are not entered into DEFTAB because they will
not be a part of macro expansion.
 References to the macro instruction parameters are converted to a positional notation
for efficiency in substituting arguments.

Name table (NAMTAB)

 The macro names are entered into NAMTAB
 NAMTAB contains pointers to beginning and end of definition in DEFTAB.

Argument table (ARGTAB)

 The third data structure is an argument table (ARGTAB), which is used during
expansion of macro invocations.
 When macro invocation statements are recognized, the arguments are stored in
ARGTAB according to their position in argument list.
 As the macro is expanded, arguments from ARGTAB are substituted for the
corresponding parameters in the macro body.
 Example: Consider the following source code
SUM MACRO &X,&Y
LDA &X
MOV B
LDA &Y
ADD B
MEND
START
LDA 4500
ADD B
SUM P,Q
LDA 3000
………….
END

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 System Software Module 4

 When the macro definition for SUM is encountered, the macro name SUM along with
its parameters X and Y are entered into DEFTAB. Then the statements in the body of
macro is also entered into DEFTAB. The positional notation is used for the
parameters. The parameter &X has been converted to ?1, &Y has been converted to
?2.
 The macro name SUM is entered into NAMTAB and the beginning and end pointers
are also marked.
 On processing the input code, opcode in each statement is compared with the
NAMTAB, to check whether it is a macro call. When the macro call SUM P,Q is
recognized, the arguments P and Q will entered into ARGTAB. The macro is
expanded by taking the statements from DEFTAB using the beginning and end
pointers of NAMTAB.
 When the ?n notation is recognized in a line from DEFTAB, the corresponding
argument is taken from ARGTAB.

Figure shows the different data structures used

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 System Software Module 4

Algorithm for one pass macro processor

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 System Software Module 4

Explanation of algorithm
 The algorithm uses 5 procedures
o MACROPROCESSOR (main function)
o DEFINE
o EXPAND
o PROCESSLINE
o GETLINE

MACROPROCESSOR (MAIN function)

 This function initialize the variable named EXPANDING to false.
 It then calls GETLINE procedure to get next line from the source program and
PROCESSLINE procedure to process that line.
 This process will continue until the END of program.

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 System Software Module 4

PROCESSLINE
 This procedure checks
o If the opcode of current statement is present in NAMTAB. If so it is a macro
invocation statement and calls the procedure EXPAND
o Else if opcode =MACRO, then it indicates the beginning of a macro definition
and calls the procedure DEFINE
o Else it is identified as a normal statement(not a macro definition or macro
call) and write it to the output file.
DEFINE
 The control will reach in this procedure if and only if it is identified as a macro
definition [Link]:
o Macro name is entered into NAMTAB
o Then the macro name along with its parameters are entered into DEFTAB.
o The statements in body of macro is also enterd into DEFTAB. References to
the macro instruction parameters are converted to a positional notation for
efficiency in substituting arguments.
o Comment lines from macro definition are not entered into DEFTAB because
they will not be a part of macro expansion.
o Store in NAMTAB the pointers to beginning and end of definition in
DEFTAB.

 To deal with Nested macro definitions DEFINE procedure maintains a counter named
LEVEL.
o When the assembler directive MACRO is read, the value of LEVEL is
incremented by 1
o When MEND directive is read, the value of LEVEL is decremented by 1
o That is, whenever a new macro definition is encountered within the current
definition, the value of LEVEL will be incremented and the while loop which
is used to process the macro definition will terminate only after the value of
LEVEL =0. With this we can ensure the nested macro definitions are properly
handled.
EXPAND
 The control will reach in this procedure if and only if it is identified as a macro call.

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 System Software Module 4

 In this procedure, the variable EXPANDING is set to true. It actually indicates the
GETLINE procedure that it is going to expand the macro call. So that GETLINE
procedure will read the next line from DEFTAB instead of reading from input file.
 The arguments of macro call are entered into ARGTAB.
 The macro call is expanded with the lines from the DEFTAB. When the ?n notation is
recognized in a line from DEFTAB, the corresponding argument is taken from
ARGTAB.

GETLINE
 This procedure is used to get the next line.
 If EXPANDING = TRUE, the next line is fetched from DEFTAB. (It means we are
expanding the macro call)
 If EXPANDING = False, the next line is read from input file.

Flow Diagram of a one pass macroprocessor

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 System Software Module 4

MACHINE INDEPENDENT MACRO PROCESSOR FEATURES

 The features of macro which doesn‟t depends on the architecture of machine is called
machine independent macro processor features.
 The features includes:
1. Concatenation of Macro Parameters
2. Generation of Unique Labels
3. Conditional Macro Expansion
4. Keyword Macro Parameters

1. Concatenation of Macro Parameters

 Most macro processor allows parameters to be concatenated with other character
strings.
 Suppose that a program contains a series of variables named by the symbols XA1,
XA2, XA3,..., and another series of variables named XB1, XB2, XB3,..., etc.
 If similar processing is to be performed on each series of labels, the programmer
might put this as a macro instruction.
 The parameter to such a macro instruction could specify the series of variables to be
operated on (A, B, etc.). The macro processor would use this parameter to construct
the symbols required in the macro expansion (XA1, XB1, etc.).

 For example, suppose that the parameter to such a macro instruction is named &ID.
The body of the macro definition contain a statement like LDA X&ID1, which means
&ID is concatenated after the string “X” and before the string “1”
TOTAL MACRO &ID
LDA X&ID1
ADD X&ID2
STA X&ID3
MEND

The macro call TOTAL A will be expanded as:

LDA XA1
ADD XA2
STA XA3

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 System Software Module 4

 Ambiguity Problem: In the statement LDA X&ID1, & is the starting character of
the macro parameter; but the end of the parameter is not marked.
 So X&ID1 may mean
X + &ID + 1 or X +&ID1

 Most of the macro processors deal with this problem by providing a special
concatenation operator to specify the end of parameter.
 Thus LDA X&ID1 can be rewritten as . So that end of the parameter
&ID is clearly defined.
 Example:

 The example given above shows a macro definition that uses the concatenation
operator as previously described. The statement TOTAL A and TOTAL BETA shows
the invocation statements and the corresponding macro expansion.
 The macroprocessor deletes all occurrences of the concatenation operator
immediately after performing parameter substitution, so the symbol will not
appear in the macro expansion.

2. Generation of unique labels

 It is not possible to use labels for the instructions in the macro definition, since every
expansion of macro would include the label repeatedly.
 This results in duplicate labels problem if macro is invoked and expanded multiple
times.(which is not allowed by the assembler)

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 System Software Module 4

 To avoid this we can use the technique of generating unique labels for every macro
invocation and expansion.
 During macro expansion each $ will be replaced with $XX, where XX is a two
character alphanumeric counter of the number of macro instructions expansion.
 For the first macro expansion in a program, XX will have the value AA. For
succeeding macro expansions XX will be set to AB,AC etc. This allows 1296 macro
expansions in a single program
 Consider the following program:
SAMPLE START 0
COPY MACRO &A,&B
LDA &A
.........
$LOOP ADD &B
..........
JLE $LOOP
STA &B
MEND
.............
COPY X,Y
LDA M
COPY P,Q
...........
END

After the macro expansion above code becomes:

SAMPLE START 0
.............
LDA &X
.........
$AALOOP ADD &Y Expansion of COPY X,Y
..........
JLE $AALOOP
STA &Y

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 System Software Module 4

LDA M
LDA &P
.........
$ABLOOP ADD &P
.......... Expansion of COPY P,Q
JLE $ABLOOP
STA &Q
...........
END

In the example, for the first invocation of COPY X,Y the label generated is $AALOOP and
for the second invocation COPY P,Q the label generated is $ABLOOP. Thus for each
invocation of macro unique label is generated.

3. Conditional Macro Expansion

 Arguments in macro invocation can be used to:
o Substitute the parameters in the macro body without changing the sequence of
statements expanded.(sequential macro expansion)
o Modify the sequence of statements for conditional macro expansion. This
capability increases power and flexibility of a macro language.
 Macro-Time Variables:
o Macro-time variables (often called as SET Symbol) can be used to store
working values during the macro expansion.
o It can also be used to store the evaluation result of Boolean expression
o Any symbol that begins with & and not a macro instruction parameter is
considered as macro-time variable. All such variables are initialized to zero.
o The value of macro-time variables can be modified by using the macro
processor directive SET
o The macro processor must maintain a symbol table to store the value of all
macro-time variables used. The table is used to look up the current value of
the macro-time variable whenever it is required.

Implementation of Macro-Time Conditional Structure IF-ELSE-ENDIF

 Structure of IF-ELSE_ENDIF:

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 System Software Module 4

Macroname MACRO &COND

........
IF (&COND NE ‟‟)
.part I
ELSE
.part II
ENDIF
.........
MEND
 When an IF statement is encountered during the expansion of a macro, the specified
Boolean expression is evaluated.
 If the value of this expression TRUE,
o The macro processor continues to process lines from the DEFTAB until it
encounters the ELSE or ENDIF statement.
o If an ELSE is found, macro processor skips lines in DEFTAB until the next
ENDIF.
o Once it reaches ENDIF, it resumes expanding the macro in the usual way.
 If the value of the expression is FALSE,
o The macro processor skips ahead in DEFTAB until it encounters next ELSE
or ENDIF statement.
o The macro processor then resumes normal macro expansion.

 Example for conditional macro:

COPY START 0
EVAL MACRO &X,&Y,&Z
IF (&Y LE &X)
LDA &X
SUB &Z
ELSE
LDA &Y
ADD &Z
ENDIF
MEND
STA P
....................

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 System Software Module 4

EVAL 2 ,3 ,4
STA Q
...............
END
After expansion the above code becomes:
COPY START 0
STA P
...................
LDA 3
ADD 4
STA Q
.........................
END

Implementation of Macro-time looping(or Expansion time looping) structure: WHILE-ENDW

 WHILE statement specifies that the following lines until the next ENDW statement,
are to be generated repeatedly as long as a particular condition is true. The testing
of this condition, and the looping are done during the macro under expansion.
 When a WHILE statement is encountered during the expansion of a macro, the
specified Boolean expression is evaluated.
 If expression is TRUE, the macro processor continues to process lines from
DEFTAB until it encounters the next ENDW [Link] ENDW is
encountered, the macro processor returns to the preceding WHILE, re-evaluates the
Boolean expression, and takes action based on the new value.
 If the expression is FALSE, the macro processor skips ahead in DEFTAB until it
finds the next ENDW statement and then resumes normal macro expansion.
 The example given below shows the usage of Macro-Time Looping
statement. In this example, the variable &LIMIT is a macro time variable.

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 System Software Module 4

Above loop after expansion

4. Keyword Macro Parameters

 The parameters used in macro can be of two types
a)Positional Parameters
b)Keyword Parameters

a) Positional Parameters
 Parameters and arguments are associated according to their positions in the macro
prototype and invocation. The programmer must specify the arguments in proper
order.
 Syntax : In macro definition,
macroname MACRO &parameter1, &parameter2,……
In macro invocation,
macroname argument1, argument2,….
Example: In macro definition,
EVAL MACRO &X, &Y
In macro invocation,
EVAL P,Q
Here &X recieves the value of P and &Y recieves the value of Q
 If an argument is to be omitted, a null argument should be used to maintain the
proper order in macro invocation statement.
 For example: Suppose a macro named EVAL has 5 possible parameters, but in a
particular invocation of the macro only the 1st and 4th parameters are to be
specified. Then the macro call will be EVAL P,,,S,

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 System Software Module 4

 Positional parameter is not suitable if a macro has a large number of parameters,

and only a few of these are given values in a typical invocation.
b) Keyword Parameters
 Each argument value is written with a keyword that names the corresponding
parameter.
 Arguments may appear in any order. That is not any importance to the position of
arguments.
 Null arguments no longer need to be used.
 For macros using keyword parameters the macro prototype statement
specification is different. Here each parameter name is followed by equal sign,
which identifies a keyword parameter and a default value is specified for some of
the parameters.
 Keyword parameters are easier to read and much less error-prone than the
positional parameters.
 It is of the form
&formal parameter name = <ordinary string>
 Consider the example:
INCR MACRO &X=, &Y=, &Z=
MOV &Z, &X
ADD &Z, &Y
MOV &Z, &X
MEND
The following calls are now equivalent
1) INCR X=A, Y=B, Z=C
2) INCR Y=B, X= A, Z= C

Default specification of parameters

 Default specification of parameters can also be possible in macros.
 This specification is useful in situations where a parameter has the same value in most
calls.
 When the desired value is different from the default value, the desired value can be
specified explicitly in a macro call.

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 System Software Module 4

 This specification overrides the default value of the parameter for the duration of that
macro call.
 Consider the example:
Here the default value R is
specified for the parameter Z
INCR MACRO &X=, &Y=, &Z=R
MOV &Z, &X
ADD &Z, &Y
MOV &Z, &X
MEND

 Then the macro call INCR X=A, Y=B will take the values A for parameter X, B for
parameter Y and R for the parameter Z.
 The macro call INCR X=A, Y=B, Z=C will take the values A for parameter X, B for
parameter Y and C for the parameter Z.

MACRO PROCESSOR DESIGN OPTIONS

Two Pass Macro Processor

 Same as on page 4
 It is easy to design a two-pass macro processor in which all macro definitions are
processed during the first pass and all macro invocation statements are expanded
during second pass.
 Such a two pass macro processor cannot handle nested macro definitions.
 Nested macros are macros in which definition of one macro contains definition of
other macros.
 Consider the macro definition example given below, which is used to swap two
numbers.
 The macro named SWAP defines another macro named STORE inside it. These type
of macro are called nested macros.

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 System Software Module 4

SWAP MACRO &X,&Y

LDA &X
LDX &Y
STORE MACRO &X,&Y
STA &Y outer macro
Inner macro
STX &X
MEND
MEND

One Pass Macro Processor

 Same as on page 4 (here only brief description is needed)
 A one-pass macro processor uses only one pass for processing macro definitions and
macro expansions.
 It can handle nested macro definitions.
 To implement one pass macro processor, the definition of a macro must appear in the
source program before any statements that invoke that macro.
 Data Structures involved in the design of one pass macro processor
DEFTAB
NAMTAB
ARGTAB
 Whenever a macro definition is encountered, the macro prototype and body of macro
is entered into DEFTAB. References to the macro instruction parameters are
converted to a positional notation for efficiency in substituting arguments.
 The macro name along with the begin and end pointers are entered into NAMTAB.
 Whenever a macro invocation is encountered, the arguments are entered into
ARGTAB.
 The macro call is expanded with the lines from the DEFTAB. When the ?n notation is
recognized in a line from DEFTAB, the corresponding argument is taken from
ARGTAB.

Recursive Macro Expansion

 Invocation of one macro by another macro is called recursive macro.
 Example for recursive macro:

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 System Software Module 4

SUM MACRO &X,&Y

STA &X
ADD &Y
MEND

INPUT MACRO &A,&B

SUM &A,&B .i n v o k i n g the macro SUM
MEND

Here the macro named INPUT is calling another macro named SUM. This is called as
recursive macro.
 The macro processor design algorithm discussed previously cannot handle recursive
macro invocation and expansion.
 Reasons are:
o The procedure EXPAND would be called recursively, thus the invocation
arguments in the ARGTAB will be overwritten.
o The Boolean variable EXPANDING would be set to FALSE when the “inner”
macro expansion is finished, that is, the macro process would forget that it had
been in the middle of expanding an “outer” macro.
o A similar problem would occur with PROCESSLINE since this procedure too
would be called recursively.
 Solutions:
o Write the macro processor in a programming language that allows recursive calls,
thus local variables will be retained.
o If we are writing in a language without recursion support, use a stack to take care of
pushing and popping local variables and return addresses. So the recursive calls can
be handled.

General-Purpose Macro Processors

 The macro processor we discussed so far is related to assembly language programming.
Macro processor for high level languages have also been developed. Macro processors
which are designed for a specific language are called special purpose macro processors.
Example for special purpose macro processor is MASM Macro processor
 These special purpose macro processors are similar in general function and approach but
the implementation details differ from language to language.

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 System Software Module 4

 The general purpose macro processor do not dependent on any particular programming
language, but can be used with a variety of different languages.
 Example for a general purpose macro processor is ELENA Macro processor

Advantages
 Programmers do not need to learn many macro languages, so much of the time and
expense involved in training are eliminated.
 Although its development costs are somewhat greater than those for a specific language
macro processor, this expense does not need to be repeated for each language, thus save
substantial overall cost.

Disadvantages
In spite of the advantages noted, there are still relatively few general purpose macro
processors. The reasons are:
 Large number of details must be dealt with in a real programming language.
 There are several situations in which normal macro parameter substitution or normal
macro expansion should not occur.
o For example, comments are usually ignored by the macro processor. But each
programming languages uses its own method for specifying comments. So a
general purpose macro processor should be designed with the capability for
identifying the comments in any programming languages.
 Another problem is with the facilities for grouping together terms, expressions, or
statements.
o Some languages use keywords such as begin and end for grouping statements
while some other languages uses special characters like { }. A general purpose
macro processor may need to take these groupings into account in scanning the
source statements.
 Another problem is with the identification of tokens of the programming languages. The
tokens means the identifiers, constants, operators and keywords in the programming
language. Different languages uses different rules for the formation of tokens. So the
design of a general purpose macro processor must take this into consideration.
 Another problem is with the syntax used for macro definitions and macro invocation
statements.

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 System Software Module 4

Macro Processing within Language Translators

 Macros can be processed
1. Outside the language translators
2. Within the Language translators

1. Macro processing outside the language translators

 The macro processors that we had discussed so far belongs to this group. They are
called macro preprocessors.
 They reads the source program statements, process the macro definitions and expand
macro invocations, producing an expanded version of the source program.
 This expanded program is then used as input to an assembler or compiler.
 So this can be considered as macro processing outside the language translators.

2. Macro processing within the language translators

 In this section we discuss the methods for combining the macro processing functions
with the language translator itself.
 Two common methods are
a) Line –by- Line Macro Processors
b) Integrated Macro Processors
a) Line-by-line macro processor
 The simplest method for combining the macro processing functions with the
language translator is a line-by-line approach.
 Using this approach, the macro processor reads the source program statement, process
the macro definitions and expand macro invocations. But it does not produce an
expanded version of source program.
 The processed lines are passed to the language translator(compiler or assembler) as
they are generated, instead of being written to an expanded source file.
 Thus macro processor operates as a sort of input routine for the assembler or
compiler.
Benefits of line –by-line macro processor
 It avoids making an extra pass over the source program. So it can be more efficient
than using a macro preprocessor.

J. JAGADEESAN, ASST. PROFESSOR OF COMPUTER SCIENCE, AAGASC, KARAIKAL-609 605.

 System Software Module 4

 Some of the data structures required by the macro processor and the language
translator can be combined (e.g., OPTAB and NAMTAB)
 Many utility subroutines can be used by both macro processor and the language
translator. This involves scanning input lines, searching tables , converting numeric
values to internal representation etc.
 It is easier to give diagnostic messages related to the source statements.

b) Integrated Macro Processors

 Although a line-by-line macro processor may use some of the same utility routines as
language translator, the functions of macro processing and program translation are
still relatively independent.
 It is possible to have even closer cooperation between the macro processor and the
language translator. Such a scheme is called as language translator with an integrated
macro processor.
 An integrated macro processor can potentially make use of any information about
the source program that is extracted by the language translator.
 The macro processor may use the results of the translator operations such as scanning
of symbols, constants, etc without involved in processing it.
 For example in FORTRAN language, consider the statement:
DO 100 I = 1,20
where DO is a keyword, 100 is statement number, I is a variable name etc.
DO 100 I = 1
since in FORTRAN blanks are not significant, this statement is an assignment
that gives the value 1 to the variable DO100I. Thus the proper interpretation
of characters cannot be decided until the rest of the statement is examined.

Disadvantages of line-by-line and integrated macro processors

 They must be specially designed and written to work with a particular implementation
of an assembler or compiler. The cost of macro processor development is added to the
costs of the language translator, which results in a more expensive software. The
assembler or compiler will be considerably larger and more complex than using a
macro preprocessor. Size may be a problem if the translator is to run on a computer
with limited memory.

J. JAGADEESAN, ASST. PROFESSOR OF COMPUTER SCIENCE, AAGASC, KARAIKAL-609 605.

 System Software Module 4

TYPES OF MACRO
Different types of macro are 1. Parameterized Macro 2. Nested Macro 3. Recursive Macro
1. Parameterized Macro
 Macros which uses parameters are called parameterized [Link] type of macro has
the capability to insert the given parameters into its [Link] we studied so
far belongs to this type.
 Example:
SUM MACRO &X,&Y
LDA &X
MOV B
LDA &Y
ADD B
MEND

2. Nested Macros
 Nested macros are macros in which definition of one macro contains definition of
other [Link] the macro definition example given below, which is used to
swap two numbers. The macro named SWAP defines another macro named STORE
inside it. These type of macro are called nested macros.

SWAP MACRO &X,&Y

LDA &X
LDX &Y
STORE MACRO &X,&Y
STA &Y outer macro
STX &X Inner macro
MEND
MEND

3. Recursive Macro
 Invocation of one macro by another macro is called recursive [Link] for
recursive macro:
SUM MACRO &X,&Y
STA &X
ADD &Y
MEND
INPUT MACRO &A,&B
SUM &A,&B .i n v o k i n g the macro SUM
MEND
Here the macro named INPUT is calling another macro named SUM. This is called as
recursive macro.

J. JAGADEESAN, ASST. PROFESSOR OF COMPUTER SCIENCE, AAGASC, KARAIKAL-609 605.