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14.2.5 Controlling Macro Expansion

Multiple factors control whether macro calls are expanded in different situations. At the highest level, SET MEXPAND controls whether macro calls are expanded. By default, it is enabled. See SET MEXPAND, for details.

A macro body may contain macro calls. By default, these are expanded. If a macro body contains !OFFEXPAND or !ONEXPAND directives, then !OFFEXPAND disables expansion of macro calls until the following !ONEXPAND.

A macro argument’s value may contain a macro call. These macro calls are expanded, unless the argument was declared with the !NOEXPAND keyword.

The argument to a macro function is a special context that does not expand macro calls. For example, if !vars is the name of a macro, then !LENGTH(!vars) expands to 5, as does !LENGTH(!1) if positional argument 1 has value !vars. To expand macros in these cases, use the !EVAL macro function, e.g. !LENGTH(!EVAL(!vars)) or !LENGTH(!EVAL(!1)). See Macro Functions, for details.

These rules apply to macro calls, not to uses within a macro body of macro functions, macro arguments, and macro variables created by !DO or !LET, which are always expanded.