Re: Is it possible for a macro to expand to nothing?

[Alan Mackenzie]

Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com> wrote:
>> That is, not to a call to a null defun, but truly to nothing:  i.e.,
>> the ensuing code (as least, when byte compiled) will be identical  to
>> what it would have been, had the macro invocation been omitted.

>> I want something like this:

>> (defmacro ifdef (condition &rest forms)
>>   "If the compile time CONDITION is non-nil, dump the FORMS to the
>> calling defun.  Otherwise do nothing."
>>   ......)

> Hi Alan,

> I'm not sure what you mean.

You might not be the only one.  ;-)

I think I want to be able to do this:

    (defun foo ()
      (setq bar 1)
      (ifdef baz (setq bar 2)))

, and if baz is nil at compile time, this function should be identical to

    (defun foo ()
      (setq bar 1))

.

> But if you mean something like "insert nothing", then you can do that
> by producing nil and then using ,@ inside a backquote. IOW, instead of
> inserting nil, you splice it in, which means inserting nothing.

That means I need to have "`,@" in the invoking defun, doesn't it?  Maybe
that would work, even if it is ugly.

> HTH.

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).