Re: Macros

[Frans Houweling]

I guess Ben hasn't promised anything, but yes, that would be great news indeed!
As macros do not need access to the data but merely perform text substitution on the syntax, I have been playing with (the thought of) a little standalone application that takes an SPSS syntax file with macros and outputs an expanded syntax file that PSPP can execute. That would not allow the beloved WRITE - INSERT cycle, but it would be a start and it would allow extensive testing.
My first attempts are in tcl (I'm sure you are all laughing except John whose cv I happened to come accross). If some real coders would like to have a go at it in a language that PSPP could later use, that would be great.
Anybody?
frans

On 11/16/2015 06:58 PM, Matthias Faeth wrote:

That is great news, so I changed the topic to Macros.

@all:
1. How is your view on that? For recall: Frans promised to support us with macro code which could serve as "replacement" for certain CTABLES functions once PSPP would support macros.

2. How would you propose to proceed on that? Is there already anybody out there who has done some work on macros or is familiar with the process to add functionality AND thinks that is a project worthwhile?

@Frans: I guess you could be the person to define the "wishlist" of macro functions, once we found a way to organize that?

Matthias

2015-11-16 1:26 GMT+01:00 Ben Pfaff <address@hidden>:

On Mon, Nov 09, 2015 at 05:01:43PM +0000, Charles Johnson wrote:
> > 3. Maybe Frans idea about implementing !Macros could serve as a
> > workaround. I think that might be worthwhile to discuss. Any opinions
> > on that?
>
> From my point of view, the implementation of macro is very different
> and deserves a discussion in itself.

The implementation of macros is a big project but I'd say that it's
simpler than SPV or CTABLES.  It's also completely independent of either
of those.