Re: Unimal 2.0, a language-independent preprocessor

[Sorry, the post came crooked 1st time around]

Hans-Bernhard Broeker wrote:

> In comp.arch.embedded Marco <prenom_nomus@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> It just doesn't seem like good programming practice to decorate your
>> source code with a non-standard and proprietary macro language.
>
>
>
> Exactly. I don't recall having seen any reason to prefer this
> new-fangled, proprietary macro processor over plain old m4.
>

Thank you for the reviews.
I am attempting to answer to both of you guys.

1. Unimal features set is well documented, so it is not proprietary: go ahead and make your own implementation. The MacroExpressions version of Unimal *program* uses a commercial library and cannot be open-sourced.

2. To compare different macro languages, aside from syntax simplicity/complexity, it helps to have their target applications in mind. Unimal is designed to help optimization and management efforts.
- Unimal's capability to output multiple files makes it very useful in sharing data across different files/languages (entering one thing in only one place is a good and often necessary practice).
- Unimal's capability to output include files dependencies and full control of output directories makes it a great fit in most build environments.

3. Comparing Unimal vs. m4... Unimal came around because I felt m4 was inadequate in features and cumbersome in syntax. Consider how hard or easy it is to
- tabulate a trig function
- share your memory map between your CRC check routine, linker command file and a tool that post-processes the build output and plants the CRC
- hand-optimize loop unrolling in the executable code
- pre-compute and compress lookup tables for constant objects
- etc. There are a few app notes on the website illustrating how to accomplish these and similar things with Unimal.

4. Unimal is *not* for capturing Unix commands output and such. This is by design: Unimal can preprocess source code and a make utility (or whatever the build driver) can control the build process. (I think a feature should be added not because I can do it but because there is a problem in the application domain that this feature solves.)

I hope this clarifies the issues you raised. Feel free to contact me if you have further questions.

Thanks again for taking a look at Unimal.

Best,
- Ark
.

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