The Dataplore ® Macro Language

One of the outstanding features of Dataplore ® is its extensibility by the creation of new, user-defined functions. For this purpose, Dataplore ® provides an own programming language for macro functions. A macro function, or short a macro, is a sequence of statements (commands, declarations, etc.) that performs a certain task. Macro programming allows you to create your own functions tailored to your specific purposes and to add them to the Dataplore ® environment.

A variety of macros is already supplied with the Dataplore ® package. After installation they can be found in the subdirectory macros of your installation directory. All macro files have the filename extension .dpm.

Macro source code files (.dpm-files) are ASCII text files that contain the macro language statements. From this source code files the Dataplore ® macro compiler generates executable functions. How to compile macros and how to run them subsequently will be explained in the section How To Compile And Run A Macro.

The Dataplore ® macro language is very closely related to the C programming language [1]. The general syntax and the use of most of its elements is analogous to C. In the section Elements Of The Dataplore ® Macro Language you can find a description of all elements of the macro language and some examples of their usage.