Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.
A Texinfo macro allows you to define a new Texinfo command as any
sequence of text and/or existing commands (including other macros). The
macro can have any number of parameters---text you supply each
time you use the macro. (This has nothing to do with the
@defmac command, which is for documenting macros in the subject
of the manual; see section The Template for a Definition.)
You use the Texinfo @macro command to define a macro. For example:
@macro macro-name{param1, param2, ...}
text ... \param1\ ...
@end macro
The parameters param1, param2, ... correspond to arguments supplied when the macro is subsequently used in the document (see the next section).
If a macro needs no parameters, you can define it either with an empty list (`@macro foo {}') or with no braces at all (`@macro foo').
The definition or body of the macro can contain any Texinfo commands, including previously-defined macros. (It is not possible to have mutually recursive Texinfo macros.) In the body, instances of a parameter name surrounded by backslashes, as in `\param1\' in the example above, are replaced by the corresponding argument from the macro invocation.
You can undefine a macro foo with @unmacro foo.
It is not an error to undefine a macro that is already undefined.
For example:
@unmacro foo
After a macro is defined (see the previous section), you can use (invoke) it in your document like this:
@macro-name {arg1, arg2, ...}
and the result will be just as if you typed the body of macro-name at that spot. For example:
@macro foo {p, q}
Together: \p\ & \q\.
@end macro
@foo{a, b}
produces:
Together: a & b.
Thus, the arguments and parameters are separated by commas and delimited by braces; any whitespace after (but not before) a comma is ignored. To insert a comma, brace, or backslash in an argument, prepend a backslash, as in
@macro-name {\\\{\}\,}
which will pass the (almost certainly error-producing) argument `\{},' to macro-name.
If the macro is defined to take a single argument, and is invoked without any braces, the entire rest of the line after the macro name is supplied as the argument. For example:
@macro bar {p}
Twice: \p\, \p\.
@end macro
@bar aah
produces:
Twice: aah, aah.
Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.