Macro contra Form

Question

Hello all
I just had to convert a program using macros (Define ... end-of-definition). The first thing I do in this case is always to change the macro to a subroutine - in my opinion macros has no advantage over forms, but some major disadvantages.
This make me wonder - why does SAP continue to support macros in ABAP ? - and why does some programmers continue to use macros?
Do macros in abap have any advantages or not ?
Best regards
Thomas Madsen Nielsen

Answer 1

Just to add to all the features of Macros given.
2 more that I feel are quite useful are:
1. You can even pass keywords like SELECT / UPDATE and OPERATORS also as substitutional paramaters. Which in some cases, greatly tends to remove repeating code that differs just in a minor functionality.
2. Macros can also provide variable names in parts, which again in some contexts is very helpful, and used extensively I think primarily in Address Creation BAPI's/FM's
Hence macros can be used to provide both of these in some cases very helpful.
Please follow the following piece of code:
DEFINE m1.
  &4 = &3 &2 &1.
END-OF-DEFINITION.
DEFINE m2.
  op&4 = op&3 &2 op&1.
END-OF-DEFINITION.
DATA: op1 TYPE i VALUE 1,
      op2 TYPE i VALUE 10,
      op3 TYPE i.
m1 op1 + op2 op3.
WRITE op3.
m1 op1 - op2 op3.
WRITE op3.
m2 1 * 2 3.
WRITE op3.
Regards,
Pavan