content/glyph/book/text_editing/macro_composition.html
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----- permalink: composition title: Glyph – Macro Composition type: page ----- <nav class="navigation"><a href="/glyph/book/text_editing/attribute_intro.html">← Macro attributes</a> | <a href="/glyph/book/index.html">Contents</a> | <a href="/glyph/book/text_editing/esc_quot.html">Escaping and Quoting →</a></nav> <p>Glyph macros can be <em>composed</em> with other using the <code>/</code> character. Macro composition can be used instead of nesting, provided that macro containers (also called <em>dispatchers</em> in certain situations) take only one parameter and no attributes.</p> <p>For example, the following code:</p> <div class="CodeRay"> <div class="code"><pre><span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n1" name="n1">1</a></span>?[ <span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n2" name="n2">2</a></span> not[output?[pdf]]| <span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n3" name="n3">3</a></span> ... <span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n4" name="n4">4</a></span>]</pre></div> </div> <p>Can be written like this:</p> <div class="CodeRay"> <div class="code"><pre><span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n1" name="n1">1</a></span>?[ <span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n2" name="n2">2</a></span> not/output?[pdf]| <span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n3" name="n3">3</a></span> ... <span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n4" name="n4">4</a></span>]</pre></div> </div> <p>In this case, the <a href="/glyph/book/macros/macros_core.html#m_not"><code>not</code></a> macro was composed with the <a href="/glyph/book/macros/macros_core.html#m_output_"><code>output?</code></a> macro, thus removing one level of nesting.</p> <p>Composition can be useful to simplify complex Glyph macro constructs, but also for <em>macro dispatching</em>. Currently, Glyph supports two <em>dispatchers</em>:</p> <ul> <li>The <a href="/glyph/book/macros/macros_core.html#m_s"><code>s</code></a> macro, used to call almost any method of the Ruby String class.</li> <li>The <a href="/glyph/book/macros/macros_core.html#m_xml"><code>xml</code></a> macro, used to render raw <span class="caps">XML</span> tags.</li> </ul> <nav class="navigation"><a href="/glyph/book/text_editing/attribute_intro.html">← Macro attributes</a> | <a href="/glyph/book/index.html">Contents</a> | <a href="/glyph/book/text_editing/esc_quot.html">Escaping and Quoting →</a></nav> |