>>I think we're confusing "pre-processing" and "compiling"; these are simply "code substitutions" performed during the pre-processor stage. The substituted code (ie. .... SYS( n ) ....) is what is getting compiled.
>
>Here's another good example for this:
>
>#DEFINE ccMESSAGE0 "Hello Mike!"
>#DEFINE ccMESSAGE1 Hello Mike!
>#DEFINE ccMESSAGE2 UPPER('Hello Mike!')
>#DEFINE ccMESSAGE3 ('Hello Mike!')
>?ccMESSAGE0
>?[ccMESSAGE1]
>?ccMESSAGE2
>?UPPER ccMESSAGE3

Yes, and for what it's worth, it's frequently more "efficient" to use a "variable" instead of a "constant"; eg.

m.cGreeting = "Hello Mike !"

#DEFINE C_GREETING "Hello Mike !"

If, for example, a program referenced "Hello Mike !" 10 times, using m.cGreeting is more "efficient" than referencing C_GREETING because using C_GREETING will add "10" occurances of the literal "Hello Mike !" to the "literal pool" vs "one" using the variable; ie. the code for the "variable case" is more compact.

"Literal pool" optimization is usally found in many native compilers, but not in VFP.