Trait scala.reflect.macros.Evals

Takes a typed wrapper for a tree of type T and evaluates it to a value of type T.

Can be used to perform compile-time computations on macro arguments to the extent permitted by the shape of the arguments.

Known issues: because of https://github.com/scala/bug/issues/5748 trees being evaluated first need to undergo untypecheck. Resetting symbols and types mutates the tree in place, therefore the conventional approach is to duplicate the tree first.

scala> def impl(c: Context)(x: c.Expr[String]) = {
     | val x1 = c.Expr[String](c.untypecheck(x.tree.duplicate))
     | println(s"compile-time value is: ${c.eval(x1)}")
     | x
     | }
impl: (c: Context)(x: c.Expr[String])c.Expr[String]

scala> def test(x: String) = macro impl
test: (x: String)String

scala> test("x")
compile-time value is: x
res0: String = x

scala> test("x" + "y")
compile-time value is: xy
res1: String = xy

scala> val x = "x"
x: String = x

scala> test(x + "y")
compile-time value is: xy
res2: String = xy

scala> { val x = "x"; test(x + "y") }
error: exception during macro expansion:
scala.tools.reflect.ToolBoxError: reflective compilation failed

Note that in the last case evaluation has failed, because the argument of a macro refers to a runtime value x, which is unknown at compile time.