Is there a way to use strings in expressions in ZMAC, so I can do
the following more efficiently:

VersDD equ 06
VersMM equ 11
VersYY equ 2000

DEFB '0'+(VersDD / 10)
DEFB '0'+(VersDD MOD 10)
DEFB "-"
if VersMM=1
DEFB 'Jan'
endif
if VersMM=2
DEFB 'Feb'
endif
if VersMM=3
DEFB 'Mar'
endif
if VersMM=4
DEFB 'Apr'
endif
etc....

In my PDP11 assembler I'd do:
VersDD: equ 06
VersMM$: equ "Nov"
VersYY: equ 2000
DEFM '0'+(VersDD/10),'0'+(VersDD MOD 10)
DEFM "-"+VersM$+"-"+STR$(VersYY)

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On Thursday, September 7, 2023 at 8:25:30 PM UTC-7, Jonathan Harston wrote:

Is there a way to use strings in expressions in ZMAC, so I can do
the following more efficiently:

Maybe it would be enough to just do the month as a macro?

VersMM macro
defm 'Mar'
endm

DEFM '0'+(VersDD/10),'0'+(VersDD MOD 10),'-'
VersMM
DEFM '-'

Or use irp to do the month number to name lookup in a cleaner fashion:

VersMM equ 7
m1=0
irp s1,<Jan,Feb,Mar,Apr,May,Jun,Jul,Aug,Sep,Oct,Nov,Dec>
if VersMM == m1
defm '&s1'
endif
m1++
endm

For the year you can stringify it doing something like this:

VersYY equ 2000

str macro sx
defm '&sx'
endm

str %VersYY

Though I guess the answer to your question is that zmac doesn't have string variables and you need to use macros to get the same kind of manipulation.

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