Going through the second part of Nimrod's tutorial I've reached the part were macros are explained. The documentation says they run at compile time, so I thought I could do some parsing of strings to create myself a domain specific language. However, there are no examples of how to do this, the debug macro example doesn't display how one deals with a string parameter.
I want to convert code like:
instantiate("""
height,f,132.4
weight,f,75.0
age,i,25
""")
…into something which by hand I would write like:
var height: float = 132.4
var weight: float = 75.0
var age: int = 25
Obviously this example is not very useful, but I want to look at something simple (multiline/comma splitting, then transformation) which could help me implement something more complex.
My issue here is how does the macro obtain the input string, parse it (at compile time!), and what kind of code can run at compile time (is it just a subset of a languaje? can I use macros/code from other imported modules)?
EDIT: Based on the answer here's a possible code solution to the question:
import macros, strutils
# Helper proc, macro inline lambdas don't seem to compile.
proc cleaner(x: var string) = x = x.strip()
macro declare(s: string): stmt =
# First split all the input into separate lines.
var
rawLines = split(s.strVal, {char(0x0A), char(0x0D)})
buf = ""
for rawLine in rawLines:
# Split the input line into three columns, stripped, and parse.
var chunks = split(rawLine, ',')
map(chunks, cleaner)
if chunks.len != 3:
error("Declare macro syntax is 3 comma separated values:\n" &
"Got: '" & rawLine & "'")
# Add the statement, preppending a block if the buffer is empty.
if buf.len < 1: buf = "var\n"
buf &= " " & chunks[0] & ": "
# Parse the input type, which is an abbreviation.
case chunks[1]
of "i": buf &= "int = "
of "f": buf &= "float = "
else: error("Unexpected type '" & chunks[1] & "'")
buf &= chunks[2] & "\n"
# Finally, check if we did add any variable!
if buf.len > 0:
result = parseStmt(buf)
else:
error("Didn't find any input values!")
declare("""
x, i, 314
y, f, 3.14
""")
echo x
echo y