Hi all, my goal is a macro \definestates[foo][...,...] which takes a comma list and creates a monadic macro \foo[n]. \foo[n] should return either the nth item or, if (n > list length), a default. I thought the right tools were \processcommalist to generate the mapping n-><list item>, as well as \processaction to retrieve the items. But naively I didn’t consider expansion ... My code so far: ··8<···································································· \unprotect \def\definestates{\dodoubleempty\do_define_states} \def\do_define_states[#1][#2]{% \expandafter\edef\csname#1_states\endcsname{% \nstates0 %% this is supposed to be expanded so we employ the \raw... variety \rawprocesscommalist[#2]\add_one_state% unknown=>\dummystate,% default=>\dummystate,% }% \do_do_define_states{#1}% } \let\dummystate\empty \newcount\nstates \unexpanded\def\add_one_state#1{% \advance\nstates\plusone \the\nstates=>#1,% } \def\do_do_define_states#1{% \expandafter\def\csname#1\endcsname {\expandafter\dosingleempty\csname do_#1\endcsname}% \expandafter\def\csname do_#1\endcsname[##1]{% \iffirstargument % <[DBG] cmd:#1, state:##1>\par \edef\currentstates{\csname#1_states\endcsname}% %% At this point \currentstates should yield the whole mapping so %% we can use it with \processaction. But ... % \show\currentstates % \currentstates\par %% ... here it still contains %% \nstates 0 \rawprocesscommalist [foo,bar,baz] ... %% and the next directive has an empty result: \rawprocessaction[##1][\currentstates]% \fi }% } \protect \starttext \definestates[mystates][foo,bar,baz] %% At this point I’d like \mystates_states to contain (literally) %% “1=>foo,2=>bar,3=>baz,unknown=>,default=>,” %% so the following command \mystates[1] % -> foo %% would be equivalent to %% \processaction[1][1=>foo,2=>bar,3=>baz,unknown=>,default=>,] \mystates[2] % -> bar \mystates[42] % -> dummy \stoptext ··8<···································································· My question: How can I use \[raw]processcommalist in an expanded definition? How can I get \[raw]processcommalist to operate on the expansion of its second argument? Does this even make sense? If not, what is the proper way? I’d be grateful for any advice Philipp PS: Yeah, I could use Lua for it but that’s not the question.