Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

Andrew Johnson <[email protected]> · Thu, 15 Aug 2002 14:57:22 -0500

A couple of questions about macro substitution in database files that I
need to check before I define some changes that could adversely affect
some EPICS sites:

1. Does anybody currently use macro names that have funny characters in
them?  The EPICS macro library allows almost any character to be used in a
name right now, but I'm thinking of significantly restricting this in
R3.15 (and within VDCT) to allow only alpha-numerics and underscore
[a-zA-Z0-9_] characters in the macro name.  Macro values will obviously
still be able to contain any character.  Any complaints, or requests for
additional characters to be added to that list?

2. Does anybody actually use the facility whereby macro names can
themselves be constructed using macros? - eg $(xx$(y)_$(zz))  I'm not
threatening to change this, just interested to hear if it's actually
useful.

I'm in the process of defining how hierarchical templates should work for
VDCT, and I need to add some syntax to macro names so templates can be
usefully modular.

- Andrew
-- 
Edsger W. Dijkstra, 1930-2002: "The use of COBOL cripples the mind;
its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offence."

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System