Macro1. A program consisting of recorded keystrokes and an application's command language that, when run within the application, executes the keystrokes and commands to accomplish a task. Macros can automate tedious and often-repeated tasks (such as saving and backing up a file to a floppy) or create special menus to speed data entry. Some programs provide a macro-recording mode in which the program records your keystrokes and then saves the recording as a macro. Others provide a built-in macro editor, where you type and edit macro commands directly to create IF/THEN/ELSE statements and DO/WHILE loops. From QUECID 2. A set of instructions stored in an executable form. Macros may be application specific (such as a spreadsheet or word processing macro that performs specific steps within that program) or general-purpose (for example, a keyboard macro that types in a user ID when Ctrl-U is pressed on the keyboard). From I-gloss 3. /mak'roh/ n. [techspeak] A name (possibly followed by a formal arg list) that is equated to a text or symbolic expression to which it is to be expanded (possibly with the substitution of actual arguments) by a macro expander. This definition can be found in any technical dictionary; what those won't tell you is how the hackish connotations of the term have changed over time. The term `macro' originated in early assemblers, which encouraged the use of macros as a structuring and information-hiding device. During the early 1970s, macro assemblers became ubiquitous, and sometimes quite as powerful and expensive as HLLs, only to fall from favor as improving compiler technology marginalized assembler programming (see languages of choice). Nowadays the term is most often used in connection with the C preprocessor, LISP, or one of several special-purpose languages built around a macro-expansion facility (such as TeX or Unix's [nt]roff suite). Indeed, the meaning has drifted enough that the collective `macros' is now sometimes used for code in any special-purpose application control language (whether or not the language is actually translated by text expansion), and for macro-like entities such as the `keyboard macros' supported in some text editors (and PC TSR or Macintosh INIT/CDEV keyboard enhancers). From Jargon Dictionary 4. A command that incorporates a set of other commands. You custom design a command, called a macro, from existing commands. Both the vi editor and the nroff and troff formatters use macros. The mm macro package described in this book is an example of a large collection of nroff and troff macros. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux |
