The macro language is a character-based language. Even variables that appear to be numeric are generally treated as character variables (except during expression evaluation). Therefore, the macro ...

When the macro processor executes a macro program statement that can create a macro variable (such as a %LET statement), the macro processor attempts to change the value of an existing macro variable ...

I've read this blog post: Macros: why they're evil., and it really illuminated for me Metasyntactic's point of view in his several discussions with Rayiner about macros. I didn't get Meta's idea ...

(1) See keyboard macro processor and macro language. (2) The part of an assembler that converts the macro calls in the program to the actual subroutines for execution. THIS DEFINITION IS FOR PERSONAL ...