maccer - macro preprocessor for the ASxxxx series of assemblers
-----------------------------------------------------------------
         especially for asz80 used in the GBDK

Copyright Michael Hope 1998.

At the moment this code is distributed under the GPL until something
better comes along:

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.

Use doc++ to extract the comments from maccer.c

Roadmap
-------
README 		- this file
test-1.S 	- Demonstration of the current capabilities of maccer
maccer.c	- Source code to maccer
Makefile	- The makefile for the project
ChangeLog	- list of changes between versions

maccer is a very simple two pass macro preprocessor that currently 
allows you to define macros and nest them.  Two pass means that the
macros may appear at any place in the file, and nesting means that
you can call macros from within macros.  It also allows you to
include the contents of binary files into the output - great for
raw data.

Useage
------
Simple enough :)
	'maccer' to read from stdin and write to stdout
	'maccer -o <output file> <input file>' to read from input file, and
	to write to output file
	Then pass the generated code through asz80.

	The format of the data outputted by the DF, INCBIN, and INCIHX
	directives can be set by adding '-ttype', where type is the output
	style type.  The current styles are:
		asgb	- original and default.  
			  Hex numbers: 0x5A.  
			  Data blocks: .db
		jas	- SGCC assembler
			  Hex numbers: $5A.  
			  Data blocks: dc.b

Commands
--------
	Note: Strings can use "" or ''
	DF	-1.234	
		- insert a fp number in the GBDK format
	INCLUDE "filename"
		- include file filename in
		- accidently allows include nesting
abc123	MACRO	arg1,arg2
	ld	arg1,#arg2
	ENDM
		- define macro abc123 with arguments arg1,arg2
		- "	abc hl,5 will gen ld hl,#5"
		- nested macros are possible
		- Macro names can only contain 'A-Z', 'a-z', '0-9', and '_'
		- You can try others but I wont guarntee that they'll always
		  work
	INCBIN	"filename"
		- include binary file filename
		- turns it into an array of .db x,y,z...
	INCIHX	"filename"
		- includes a Intel .ihx file as binary
		- DOES NOT translate addresses or use the checksum
Disclaimer
----------
This program has not been stress tested.  Any bug reports preferably
with fixes will be greatly appreciated.

Plans for the future
--------------------
* Add a 'REPEAT' block eg

	REPEAT	5
	ld	a,(hl)
	ld	(de),a
	inc	de
	inc	hl
	END

would expand into a piece of code that copies 5 bytes.

* Think of a decent name for it :)

-- Michael Hope
	michaelh@earthling.net
	www.pcmedia.co.nz/~michaelh/

	1/20 Dublin Street
	Christchurch
	New Zealand