Macros

The Macros tab shows a table of the currently defined macros. Icons in the tool bar control the macros.

• creates a new macro.
• deletes the currently selected macro.
• The third icon in the tool bar toggles between two display forms. If the icon is only a list of macro names is displayed. If the icon is the macro names, types, and descriptions are displayed.

To edit any field in the table, double-click and edit. The type is one of IP Address, IP Service, IP Protocol, Action, or Scope. The structured editor uses the type information to determine what macros can be used in which fields. The Dictionaries editor also uses the type information to ensure that correct values are entered in the dictionary.

Macros can be used as values in the structured editor. To distinguish between a macro and a string, all macro references must start with the '$' character.

For example, say you created a macro of type IP Address named "LabServers". In the expression editor, you could enter "$LabServers" for the value of the Destination Address if you wanted to compose an expression testing how traffic to the Lab Servers was being processed. Note that the structured editor checks the macro types and does not permit macros of the wrong type to be used (e.g., if you are editing a Scope value, you will not have access to "$LabServers" because it is not a Scope).