Scala, Maven, and preprocessors

I know all of the philosophical arguments against preprocessors and macros in Java. I don't agree that just because some may abuse a language feature, it should be excluded for all.

I would like to include __FILE__ and __LINE__ macros in my Java and Scala code for efficient logging. Any use of Exception is unacceptable because of runtime performance impacts. Those people who argue that logging can be turned off in "production code" should heed the advise of Brian Kernighan:

Removing the error messages "now that the program is working" is like wearing a parachute on the ground, but taking it off once you're in the air.

Is there any possibility that these macros might make it into the language? If not, is there any way to run a preprocessor like m4 using Maven?

Thanks.

Solution

Update @ralph Well, this is a question from 2+ years ago, but since I'm having the same need for __LINE__ and __FILE__ and you had mentioned SCALA; here are some ideas I'm having, using Scala macros (as of v2.10.0-RC1)

def $currentPosition:String = macro _currentPosition;
def _currentPosition(c:Context):c.Expr[String]={ import c.universe._;
  val pos = c.enclosingPosition;
  c.Expr(Literal(Constant(
    s"${pos.source.path}: line ${pos.line}, column ${pos.column}" )))
}

Macros being evaluated at compile-time, $currentPosition is replaced with a literal string that describes its position in the source code. For example, put in a println at line 13, it displays:

/sandbox/tmp_juno_workspace2/LogMacro_Test/src/test/Trial.scala: line 13, column 15

I have not played with these mechanisms extensively, but by tweaking the thing, one can develop the logging features (s)he requires (I should add that writing macros can be difficult - it is for me!).