I would like to know how and when is the best time to use "common", "reverse" and "forward" within a macro. These are Fasm-specific constructs and I am not exactly sure how they work. I have read the FASM PDF manual straight through and it did not seem to explain these in a way in which I would understand. Also, I have looked at various macros which use these constructs and I still cannot understand how they are exactly working. I think everything else about fasm seems pretty self-explanatory to me, except for this one thing.

In other words, the manual did not allow me to understand and neither does looking at raw code that uses it.

Would somebody please post some very simple code which uses those which is commented well, explaining how and when they should be used and why?

Thanks!

this will generate: 1,2,3,"$"

but if you have:

this will generate: 1,"$",2,"$",3,"$"

reverse works similarly:

but if you have:

this will generate: 3,"$",2,"$",1,"$"

so you can see common is processed always only once - for all values at once. but forward and reverse blocks are processed individually for each element in comma-separated parameter

THANK YOU! That was most useful and an absolutely excellent explanation!