Write Less, Do More (and Have Fun!) with Elixir Macros
summary
Claims that macros let code write code are demonstrated by building an assert macro and mini testing DSL that pattern matches quoted AST (three-element tuples) via quote/unquote and returns detailed failure messages. Tools used: Elixir macros, compile-time evaluation, pattern-matching, apply. A 20,000-line Unicode data.txt is read at compile time to generate thousands of do_upcase functions for correct Unicode uppercasing. A router.match functions generated routing layer is compiled to performant pattern-matching dispatch. Examples compile and run; the GitHub-demo works but embeds external data at compile time (risky).
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chapters (12)
- 0:00Introduction to Elixir
- 1:14Understanding Elixir macros
- 3:20Rule of macros
- 6:05Internal code representation
- 9:02Writing an assert macro
- 14:22Building a testing DSL
- 17:38Advanced test macros
- 25:28Real world unicode handling
- 31:23Routing in Phoenix
- 37:26Macro conveniences
- 39:09Fun with macros
- 42:35Conclusion and Q&A
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