3.7 Quick Names

FunnelWeb provides a quick name syntax as an alternative, for macros whose name consists of a single character, to the angle bracket syntax usually used (e.g. @<Sloth@>). A quick name sequence consists of @#x where x, the name of the macro, can be any printable character except space.

quick_name = "@#" non_space_printable

The result is identical to the equivalent ordinary name syntax, but is shorter. For example, @#X is equivalent to @<X@>. This shorter way of writing one-character macro names is more convenient where a macro must be used very often. For example, the macro calls in the following fragment of an Ada program are a little clumsy.

@! Define @<D@> as "" to turn on debug code
@! and "--" to turn it off.
@$@<D@>@{--@@)
@<D@>assert(b>3);
@<D@>if x>7 then write("error") end if

The calls can be shortened using the alternative syntax.

@! Define @#| as "" to turn on debug code
@! and "--" to turn it off.
@$@#|@{--@@)
@#|assert(b>3);
@#|if x>7 then write("error") end if