# Macro that inlines functions
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/macro-that-inlines-functions/105391
**Category:** General Usage
**Created:** [October 25, 2023, 6:13pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/macro-that-inlines-functions/105391 "2023-10-25T18:13:24Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@f.ij](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/f.ij)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2023, 6:13pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/macro-that-inlines-functions/105391/1 "2023-10-25T18:13:24Z")
I want to use some inlinable functions with @turbo for cleaner syntax, [which currently does not work](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/loop-vectorization-syntax-very-limiting/105387/5).
Is it possible to write a macro that gets an expression, and then for every function that should inline, replaces it by the function body? This way I could use my inlinable functions and write something like @inline\_expand @turbo expr.
---
### Author:  [@jling](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jling)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2023, 6:16pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/macro-that-inlines-functions/105391/2 "2023-10-25T18:16:08Z")
not really. Macro can’t see runtime value thus it won’t know what’s the method body to “paste” in place of your function call
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### Author:  [@f.ij](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/f.ij)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2023, 6:17pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/macro-that-inlines-functions/105391/3 "2023-10-25T18:17:41Z")
I’m not sure I completely understand, the expression that should be inlined should be completely known at compile time, right?
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### Author:  [@jling](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jling)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2023, 6:19pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/macro-that-inlines-functions/105391/4 "2023-10-25T18:19:50Z")
macros run on source code before anything happens, not during compile time
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### Author:  [@f.ij](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/f.ij)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2023, 6:21pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/macro-that-inlines-functions/105391/5 "2023-10-25T18:21:58Z")
My bad, you’re right. Then it would not work if there’s any dispatch going on. However, in my case I just want to write some functions, basically as an alias to make the code a bit cleaner and semantically easier to understand. The macro could scan the source code to find the function body in this case.
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### Author:  [@jling](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jling)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2023, 6:22pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/macro-that-inlines-functions/105391/6 "2023-10-25T18:22:40Z")
you can use [GitHub - rafaqz/Mixers.jl: Julia mixin macros. Mixed, not stirred](https://github.com/rafaqz/Mixers.jl) to “puke” the source code body into the location you want. `@pour`
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### Author:  [@DNF](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/DNF)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2023, 6:25pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/macro-that-inlines-functions/105391/7 "2023-10-25T18:25:08Z")
Not sure I understand your question correctly, but the `@inline` macro is supposed to work at the call site as well: [Essentials · The Julia Language](https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/base/base/#Base.@inline)
> ```julia
> @inline block
>
> ```
>
> Give a hint to the compiler that calls within `block` are worth inlining.
>
> ```julia
> # The compiler will try to inline `f`
> @inline f(...)
>
> # The compiler will try to inline `f`, `g` and `+`
> @inline f(...) + g(...)
>
> ```
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### Author:  [@abraemer](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/abraemer)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2023, 6:41pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/macro-that-inlines-functions/105391/8 "2023-10-25T18:41:03Z")
Note for your hypothetical macro to fulfil its purpose it would need to be expanded _before_ the outer `@turbo`. I think (but do not know) that the outermost macro is expanded first. If that is the case then even your hypothetical macro solution could not work.
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### Author:  [@abraemer](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/abraemer)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2023, 6:44pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/macro-that-inlines-functions/105391/9 "2023-10-25T18:44:34Z")
IIUC, the issue that @f.ij wants to do something like:
```julia
@turbo ....
myfunction(...)
end
```
to write cleaner code inside the loop. However in that case LoopVectorization.jl cannot see inside the function call to optimize stuff.
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### Author:  [@jling](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jling)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2023, 6:49pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/macro-that-inlines-functions/105391/10 "2023-10-25T18:49:09Z")
oh, in that case `@pour` won’t work, because macro evaluation is outside-in (opposite of function evaluations)
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### Author:  [@f.ij](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/f.ij)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2023, 7:40am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/macro-that-inlines-functions/105391/11 "2023-10-26T07:40:42Z")
> [@jling](#):
>
> oh, in that case `@pour` won’t work, because macro evaluation is outside-in (opposite of function evaluations)
I assumed the same thing but it does seem to work, I’m not a great fan of the syntax though. Moreover I’m fine with writing a macro that wraps around @turbo.