Procedural functionlike!() macros using only Macros 1.1

Did you think Macros 1.1 was only for custom derives? Think again.

This approach works with any Rust version >= 1.15.0.

Defining procedural macros

Two crates are required to define a macro.

The declaration crate

This crate is allowed to contain other public things if you need, for example traits or functions or ordinary macros.

https://github.com/dtolnay/proc-macro-hack/tree/master/demo-hack

#[macro_use]
extern crate proc_macro_hack;

// This is what allows the users to depend on just your
// declaration crate rather than both crates.
#[allow(unused_imports)]
#[macro_use]
extern crate demo_hack_impl;
#[doc(hidden)]
pub use demo_hack_impl::*;

proc_macro_expr_decl! {
    /// Add one to an expression.
    add_one! => add_one_impl
}

proc_macro_item_decl! {
    /// A function that always returns 2.
    two_fn! => two_fn_impl
}

The implementation crate

This crate must contain nothing but procedural macros. Private helper functions and private modules are fine but nothing can be public.

A less trivial macro would probably use the syn crate to parse its input and the quote crate to generate the output.

https://github.com/dtolnay/proc-macro-hack/tree/master/demo-hack-impl

#[macro_use]
extern crate proc_macro_hack;

proc_macro_expr_impl! {
    /// Add one to an expression.
    pub fn add_one_impl(input: &str) -> String {
        format!("1 + {}", input)
    }
}

proc_macro_item_impl! {
    /// A function that always returns 2.
    pub fn two_fn_impl(input: &str) -> String {
        format!("fn {}() -> u8 {{ 2 }}", input)
    }
}

Both crates depend on proc-macro-hack:

[dependencies]
proc-macro-hack = "0.4"

Additionally, your implementation crate (but not your declaration crate) is a proc macro:

[lib]
proc-macro = true

Using procedural macros

Users of your crate depend on your declaration crate (not your implementation crate), then use your procedural macros as though it were magic. They even get reasonable error messages if your procedural macro panics.

https://github.com/dtolnay/proc-macro-hack/tree/master/example

#[macro_use]
extern crate demo_hack;

two_fn!(two);

fn main() {
    let x = two();
    let nine = add_one!(x) + add_one!(2 + 3);
    println!("nine = {}", nine);
}

Crates based on this approach

indoc – Macro that allows the content of string literals to be indented in source code.
structure – Macro that uses a format string to create strongly-typed data pack/unpack interfaces.
bstring – Macro for formatting byte strings.
net-literals – Macros for writing IP/socket address literals that are checked for validity at compile time.
wstr – Macros for compile-time UTF-16 (wide) string literals.
hexf – Macros that enable hexadecimal floating point literals.
binary_macros – Macros for decoding base64 and hexadecimal-like encodings from string literals to [u8] literals at compile time.
autoimpl – Macro to generate a default blanket impl for a generic trait.
array-macro – Macro for concisely building large arrays.
reql – Includes a macro to splice an array of ReQL arguments into another term.

Limitations

An item macro cannot be invoked multiple times within the same scope (#2).
An expression macro cannot expand into recursive calls to itself (#4).
The input to your macro cannot contain dollar signs (#8).
Your macro must expand to either an expression or zero-or-more items, cannot sometimes be one or the other depending on input (#9).
Type macros are not supported (#10).

License

Licensed under either of

Apache License, Version 2.0 (LICENSE-APACHE or http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
MIT license (LICENSE-MIT or http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)

at your option.

Contribution

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in this hack by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be dual licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.

proc-macro-hack 0.4.0