Re: Suggestion to add ifndef builtin macro

[Eric Blake]

On 05/15/2014 02:13 PM, Daniel Goldman wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I would like to suggest the small change to add an m4_ifndef builtin
> macro to some future version of m4.

Why? You can already write your own m4_ifndef macro that wraps the
builtin.  We intentionally want a minimal set of builtins, and leave the
bulk of the power in wrappers around the builtins.

m4_define(`m4_ifndef', `m4_ifdef(`$1', `$3', `$2')')

> Reason #1 I suggest adding m4_ifndef is for better communication, to
> make the language easier to express the logic. Perhaps a lot of m4 usage
> is obscure, but I don't consider that a virtue. I would argue that:
> 
> m4_ifndef(`MACRO_1', `MACRO_1' NOT defined)
> 
> is clearer than:
> 
> m4_ifdef(`MACRO_1', , `MACRO_1' NOT defined)

Yes, and that's why the autoconf language has an m4_ifndef wrapper
alongside the m4_ifdef wrapper.  But that didn't require a new builtin.

> Reason #1 in favor of NOT adding is because m4_ifdef is adequate to do
> the logical operations. To my understanding the following two macros are
> 100% equivalent:
> 
> m4_ifdef(`MACRO_1', `MACRO_1' defined, `MACRO_1' NOT defined)
> m4_ifndef(`MACRO_1', `MACRO_1' NOT defined, `MACRO_1' defined)
> 

Yes, if you write your m4_ifndef wrapper as above.

> 
> $ cat ifndef-02.m4
> m4_define(`m4_ifndef', `m4_ifdef(`$1', `$3', `$2')')

Yep, you already wrote the correct composite macro.

-- 
Eric Blake   eblake redhat com    +1-919-301-3266
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org

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