string equates versus string literals

[Bern Ertl]

What are the pros/cons of using macros for string literals versus using string equates?

I understand that string equates are calculated/concatenated at compile time. Is the same true for macros of string literals?

For example, what is the difference between:

$appname = "My App"
$errmsg = " - Error"

MSGBOX ERROR$( ERR),,$appname + $errmsg

and

MACRO mappname = "My App"
MACRO merrmsg = " - Error"

MSGBOX ERROR$( ERR),,mappname + merrmsg

[Michael Mattias]

A MACRO may hold a string longer than the permitted maximum length of a string equate.

[John Gleason]

I understand that string equates are calculated/concatenated at compile time. Is the same true for macros of string literals?

String macros are not concatenated at compile time, but at runtime. Therefore each reference to the macro will result in the re-concatenation of the string and will use the processor cycles necessary to perform it.

[John Gleason]

Here is code to demo the difference mentioned above:

#COMPILE EXE
#DIM ALL

MACRO s1 = "lllllllllllllllllllllllll"&"ssssssssssssssssssssssss"
$s2      = "rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrooooo"&"rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr"

FUNCTION PBMAIN () AS LONG

        LOCAL ii AS LONG, s3 AS STRING, t, t1 AS SINGLE

        t = TIMER
        FOR ii = 1 TO 10000000
            s3 = $s2
        NEXT
        t = TIMER - t

        t1 = TIMER
        FOR ii = 1 TO 10000000
            s3 = s1
        NEXT
        t1 = TIMER - t1
        ? STR$(t) & "  vs " & STR$(t1) & " sec"
'        WAITKEY$

END FUNCTION

[Bern Ertl]

Thanks John. That helps.