Composable and compilable macros:: you want it when?

ABSTRACT

Many macro systems, especially for Lisp and Scheme, allow macro transformers to perform general computation. Moreover, the language for implementing compile-time macro transformers is usually the same as the language for implementing run-time functions. As a side effect of this sharing, implementations tend to allow the mingling of compile-time values and run-time values, as well as values from separate compilations. Such mingling breaks programming tools that must parse code without executing it. Macro implementors avoid harmful mingling by obeying certain macro-definition protocols and by inserting phase-distinguishing annotations into the code. However, the annotations are fragile, the protocols are not enforced, and programmers can only reason about the result in terms of the compiler's implementation. MzScheme---the language of the PLT Scheme tool suite---addresses the problem through a macro system that separates compilation without sacrificing the expressiveness of macros.

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Index Terms

• Software and its engineering

  • Software notations and tools

    • Compilers

      • Parsers

      • Preprocessors

    • General programming languages

      • Language features

  • Software organization and properties

    • Extra-functional properties

      • Interoperability