Publication Date

Spring 2023

Degree Type

Master's Project

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Computer Science

First Advisor

Thomas Austin

Second Advisor

Chris Pollett

Third Advisor

Rula Khayrallah

Keywords

User Defined Macros, Ruby

Abstract

Ruby does not have a way to create custom syntax outside what the language already offers. Macros allow custom syntax creation. They achieve this by code generation that transforms a small set of instructions into a larger set of instructions. This gives programmers the opportunity to extend the language based on their own custom needs.

Macros are a form of meta-programming that helps programmers in writing clean and concise code. MacRuby is a hygienic macro system. It works by parsing the Abstract Syntax Tree(AST) and replacing macro references with expanded Ruby code. MacRuby offers an intuitive way to declare macro and expand the source code based on the expansion rules.

We validated MacRuby by adding some features to the Ruby language that didn’t exist before or were removed as the user base for the feature was small. We fulfilled this by creating a library using the simple and easy syntax of MacRuby, thus demonstrating the library’s utility.

Download

Share

COinS