Improve macro parameter handling

[thrust26]

Currently parameters are passed as strings without any option to operate on them. The following enhancements would be very useful:

1. string operations (substrings and iterations)
2. convert strings into values

[andrew-davie]

Use case... creating lo/hi tables using just the single 'definition'...

    MAC LOHI ;@label
    IF STAGE = 0
        .byte <{1}
    ELSE
        .byte >{1}
    ENDIF
    ENDM


; Create two tables - one for low bytes, the other for high bytes
; Fill the tables using LOHI macro

STAGE SET 0
    REPEAT 2
    IF STAGE = 0
LOTable
    ELSE
HITable
    ENDIF
        LOHI lab1
        LOHI lab2
        LOHI lab3
STAGE SET STAGE+1
    REPEND

lab1 ;data...
lab2 ;data...
lab3 ;data...

[andrew-davie]

Well maybe not a use-case for strings, per se.
But it would be nice to be able to do the above

[andrew-davie]

Dammit, that actually works already.
I'm sure I've tried this before... ??? Ha

[thrust26]

What did you expect not to work here?

[andrew-davie]

Did you know if you pass a parameter as an actual quoted string, then it does not get evaluated?
For example...

    MAC OVERLAY ; {name}
OVERLAY_NAME SET {1}
  ECHO "NAME IS", OVERLAY_NAME
    ENDM

if you call this with

OVERLAY "test"

Then the output will be
NAME IS test

If you call this with

OVERLAY test

Then the output will be
NAME IS

The point being, if you quote the parameter as a quoted string, then you can treat it as a string. This may be obvious...? But in any case, I use this in macros to assign the STRING to a label, and then use that (stirng) label later on for something else (for example, to print diagnostics/stats about the assembly).