Converting C Macros to Actionscript 3

Question

I am trying to convert a macro in C to something that would work similarly in Actionscript.

The C macro takes a string, and using ## checks the type against other macros to check that the item's property is of the right type.

To clarify, the C:

...
#define STACK_NUM     52
...
#define CHECK_TYPE(i, t)      \
( ((i).type == t##_NUM) )     \

I'm trying to convert this into something of the same in Actionscript. The current way I am doing it is creating a class

public class StringMacro extends String {
    public var macro:int;

    public function
    StringMacro(value:int)
    {
        super();
        macro = value;
    }
}

and defining all the macros from C in variables of this class, but this takes up a large amount of space and I really don't want to do it this way.

So, what I came up with was something like this:

public class Macros {
    ...
    public var STACK_NUM:uint = 52;
    ...

    public function
    Macros()
    {
    }

}

I want to reference the Macros class doing something like this:

private var macros:Macros = new Macros();
if(CHECK_TYPE(10, STACK))    
    ....

private function
CHECK_TYPE(value:int, t:String):Boolean
{
    if(value == macros.(t)) {
        return true;
    }
}

so I can pass t into the function and it will check it among the definitions in the Macro class.

Is there a way to make this work or something like it?

Answer 1

Hi David,

Yes you can access values that way, you need to use slightly different syntax though.

DO:

macros[t]

NOT:

macros.(t)

You may also want to consider using static vars for this, so you don't have to create an instance of the Macros class. If that fits in with your design.