Re: Macros [was: Re: ATTR_HTML for a clickable image, howto?]

[Nicolas Goaziou <n.goaziou@gmail.com>]

Hello,

Bastien <bzg@gnu.org> writes:

> François Pinard <pinard@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:
>
>> If macros are there to stay in Org, it might be worth documenting a more
>> complete specification about how to define and use them.
>
> I'd welcome some improvement of the manual wrt macros -- any taker?

Before documenting anything, we should first define them clearly. That
is, we can define them through documentation, but we shouldn't write
documentation by looking at their current implementation.

Should macros be allowed anywhere (which means that the user can shoot
himself in the foot) or should their expansion happen in a protected
environment (thus limiting their power)?

In the first case, can macros generate inline Babel code, that will be
executed before export?

In the second case, what types of elements are allowed in the protected
environment?

Also, do we want to allow multiples macros definitions to stack up? I.e.

  #+MACRO: a-macro First line of the macro.
  #+MACRO: a-macro Second line of the macro.

If so, do we allow blank lines in them, meaning they can break document
structure even more?

Can the macros be nested?

Since macros arguments are comma-separated, how do one insert commas
within an argument?

Are newline characters allowed in arguments? If not, what else is
forbidden there?

There are probably other questions, but it should be a good start for
a correct implementation.


Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Goaziou