And probably you should strip out the 'macro' bit there because in reality that's the pre-processor doing it's work and even though there isn't a C compiler without a pre-processor technically speaking it is not part of the compiler since all it does is output more C.
I disagree. Looping constructs that typically would be macros in an assembler such as 'while' and 'for' are C constructs. Also, C itself has automatic field offset computations.
A macro for subroutine entry could reserve stack space and define offset constants. A macro for subroutine returning releases the extra space.
It could be neat to use, if the processor architecture has sane addressing modes. (I might have seen/done something similar... doesn't feel like a new idea to me. :-) )
(The entry macro might need a simple preprocessor.)
Disclaimer: C and lower was another life, dimly remembered. :-)
s/FIXME/Ruby, or Python, or Perl, or any other language. Where does one draw the line that distinguishes a language from a sophisticated enough assembler?
In java any kind of minimal assignment can explode behind the scenes into a a whole pile of function calls, that would never happen in C, what you see is what you get.