README.macro

This is a quick intoduction to using the macro library.


In the end, the user will have to use macros of the format:

%[<format>]<macro>%

where

format is a printf style format, and
macro is the name of the defined macro to be expanded


Some examples:

HELLO -> world (string)
NAME -> sorend (string)
DONE -> 51.1 (float)
TOTAL -> 1353 (int)


'%[%s]HELLO%'      -> 'world'
'%[%-10.10s]NAME%' -> 'sorend    '
'%[%.1f]DONE%'     -> '51.1'
'%[%10d]TOTAL%'    -> '      1353'


To use the macro lib do the following:

1) Create a new macro_list variable:

   struct macro_list *macros;

2) Add the macros and their expansion values.  Look at the macro.h
   to check which ml_add* functions are supported.

   macros = ml_addstring(macros, "HELLO", "world");
   macros = ml_addstring(macros, "NAME", "sorend");
   macros = ml_addfloat(macros, "DONE", 51.1);
   macros = ml_addint(macros, "TOTAL", 1353);

3) Get the text to replace and get the macros expanded.

   char *out;

   out = ml_replacebuf(macros, "
hello %[%s]HELLO%!
Name : %[%-10.10s]NAME%
Done : %[%.1f]DONE%
Total: %[%10d]TOTAL%
");

   printf(out);


4) Free the resources:

   // free the newly allocated buffer of macroexpanded content.
   free(out);

   // free the expansions
   ml_free(macros);

   // prevent bad usage in future
   macros = 0;