Unique identifier for Racket objects? - racket

Is there a way to get a unique identifier for an object in Racket? For instance, when we use Racket's eq? operator to check whether two variables refer to the same object, what identifier is it using to achieve this comparison?
I'm looking for something like python's id function or Ruby's object_id method, in other words, some function id such that (= (id obj) (id obj2)) means that (eq? obj obj2) is true.
Some relevant docs:
Object Identity and Comparisons
Variables and Locations

Is eq-hash-code what you want?
> (define l1 '(1))
> (define l2 '(1))
> (eq? l1 l2)
#f
> (eq-hash-code l1)
9408
> (eq-hash-code l2)
9412

There's a way to get a C pointer of an object via ffi/unsafe, with the obvious caveat that it's UNSAFE.
;; from https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Address_of_a_variable#Racket
(require ffi/unsafe)
(define (madness v) ; i'm so sorry
(cast v _racket _gcpointer))
To use it:
(define a (list 1 2))
(define b (list 1 2))
(printf "a and b have different address: ~a ~a\n"
(equal? (madness a) (madness b))
(eq? a b))
(printf "a and a have the same address: ~a ~a\n"
(equal? (madness a) (madness a))
(eq? a a))
(printf "1 and 1 have the same address: ~a ~a\n"
(equal? (madness 1) (madness 1))
(eq? 1 1))
Though the pointer is not a number or an identifier. It's an opaque object... So in a sense, this is kinda useless. You could have used the real objects with eq? instead.
I also don't know any guarantee of this method. In particular, I don't know if the pointer will be updated to its latest value when the copy GC copies objects.

Here is an implementation of such a function using a weak hash table.
Using a weak hash table ensures that objects are garbage collected correctly
even if we have given it an id.
#lang racket
(define ht (make-weak-hasheq))
(define next 0)
(define (get-id x)
(define id (hash-ref ht x #f))
(or id
(begin0
next
(hash-set! ht x next)
(set! next (+ next 1)))))
(get-id 'a)
(get-id 'b)
(get-id 'a)
Note that Sylwester's advice is sound. The standard is to store the value directly.

You most likely won't find an identity, but the object itself is only eq? with itself and nothing else. eq? basically compares the address location of the values. So if you want an id you can just store the whole object at that place and it will be unique.
A location is a binding. Think of it as an address you cannot get and an address which has an address to a object. Eg. a binding ((lambda (a) a) 10) would store the address location of the object 10 in the first stack address and the code in the body just returns that same address. A location can change by set! but you'll never get the memory location of it.
It's common for lisp systems to store values in pointers. That means that some types and values doesn't really have an object at the address, but the address has a value and type encoded in it that the system knows. Typically small integers, chars, symbols and booleans can be pointer equal even though they are constructed at different times. eg. '(1 2 3) would only use 3 pairs and not any space for the values 1-3 and ().

Related

Implementing an infinite list of consecutive integers in Lisp for lazy evaluation

Prelude
In Raku there's a notion called infinite list AKA lazy list which is defined and used like:
my #inf = (1,2,3 ... Inf);
for #inf { say $_;
exit if $_ == 7 }
# => OUTPUT
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
I'd like to implement this sort of thing in Common Lisp, specifically an infinite list of consecutive integers like:
(defun inf (n)
("the implementation"))
such that
(inf 5)
=> (5 6 7 8 9 10 .... infinity)
;; hypothetical output just for the demo purposes. It won't be used in reality
Then I'll use it for lazy evaluation like this:
(defun try () ;; catch and dolist
(catch 'foo ;; are just for demo purposes
(dolist (n (inf 1) 'done)
(format t "~A~%" n)
(when (= n 7)
(throw 'foo x)))))
CL-USER> (try)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
; Evaluation aborted.
How can I implement such an infinite list in CL in the most practical way?
A good pedagogical approach to this is to define things which are sometimes called 'streams'. The single best introduction to doing this that I know of is in Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. Streams are introduced in section 3.5, but don't just read that: read the book, seriously: it is a book everyone interested in programming should read.
SICP uses Scheme, and this sort of thing is more natural in Scheme. But it can be done in CL reasonably easily. What I've written below is rather 'Schemy' CL: in particular I just assume tail calls are optimised. That's not a safe assumption in CL, but it's good enough to see how you can build these concepts into a language which does not already have them, if your language is competent.
First of all we need a construct which supports lazy evaluation: we need to be able to 'delay' something to create a 'promise' which will be evaluated only when it needs to be. Well, what functions do is evaluate their body only when they are asked to, so we'll use them:
(defmacro delay (form)
(let ((stashn (make-symbol "STASH"))
(forcedn (make-symbol "FORCED")))
`(let ((,stashn nil)
(,forcedn nil))
(lambda ()
(if ,forcedn
,stashn
(setf ,forcedn t
,stashn ,form))))))
(defun force (thing)
(funcall thing))
delay is mildly fiddly, it wants to make sure that a promise is forced only once, and it also wants to make sure that the form being delayed doesn't get infected by the state it uses to do that. You can trace the expansion of delay to see what it makes:
(delay (print 1))
-> (let ((#:stash nil) (#:forced nil))
(lambda ()
(if #:forced #:stash (setf #:forced t #:stash (print 1)))))
This is fine.
So now, we'll invent streams: streams are like conses (they are conses!) but their cdrs are delayed:
(defmacro cons-stream (car cdr)
`(cons ,car (delay ,cdr)))
(defun stream-car (s)
(car s))
(defun stream-cdr (s)
(force (cdr s)))
OK, let's write a function to get the nth element of a stream:
(defun stream-nth (n s)
(cond ((null s)
nil)
((= n 0) (stream-car s))
(t
(stream-nth (1- n) (stream-cdr s)))))
And we can test this:
> (stream-nth 2
(cons-stream 0 (cons-stream 1 (cons-stream 2 nil))))
2
And now we can write a function to enumerate an interval in the naturals, which by default will be an half-infinite interval:
(defun stream-enumerate-interval (low &optional (high nil))
(if (and high (> low high))
nil
(cons-stream
low
(stream-enumerate-interval (1+ low) high))))
And now:
> (stream-nth 1000 (stream-enumerate-interval 0))
1000
And so on.
Well, we'd like some kind of macro which lets us traverse a stream: something like dolist, but for streams. Well we can do this by first writing a function which will call a function for each element in the stream (this is not the way I'd do this in production CL code, but it's fine here):
(defun call/stream-elements (f s)
;; Call f on the elements of s, returning NIL
(if (null s)
nil
(progn
(funcall f (stream-car s))
(call/stream-elements f (stream-cdr s)))))
And now
(defmacro do-stream ((e s &optional (r 'nil)) &body forms)
`(progn
(call/stream-elements (lambda (,e)
,#forms)
,s)
,r))
And now, for instance
(defun look-for (v s)
;; look for an element of S which is EQL to V
(do-stream (e s (values nil nil))
(when (eql e v)
(return-from look-for (values e t)))))
And we can then say
> (look-for 100 (stream-enumerate-interval 0))
100
t
Well, there is a lot more mechanism you need to make streams really useful: you need to be able to combine them, append them and so on. SICP has many of these functions, and they're generally easy to turn into CL, but too long here.
For practical purposes it would be wise to use existing libraries, but since the question is about how to implemented lazy lists, we will do it from scratch.
Closures
Lazy iteration is a matter of producing an object that can generate the new value of a lazy sequence each time it is asked to do so.
A simple approach for this is to return a closure, i.e. a function that closes over variables, which produces values while updating its state by side-effect.
If you evaluate:
(let ((a 0))
(lambda () (incf a)))
You obtain a function object that has a local state, namely here the variable named a.
This is a lexical binding to a location that is exclusive to this function, if you evaluate a second time the same expression, you'll obtain a different anonymous function that has its own local state.
When you call the closure, the value stored in a in incremented and its value is returned.
Let's bind this closure to a variable named counter, call it multiple times and store the successive results in a list:
(let ((counter (let ((a 0))
(lambda () (incf a)))))
(list (funcall counter)
(funcall counter)
(funcall counter)
(funcall counter)))
The resulting list is:
(1 2 3 4)
Simple iterator
In your case, you want to have an iterator that starts counting from 5 when writing:
(inf 5)
This can implemented as follows:
(defun inf (n)
(lambda ()
(shiftf n (1+ n))))
Here is there is no need to add a let, the lexical binding of an argument to n is done when calling the function.
We assign n to a different value within the body over time.
More precisely, SHIFTF assigns n to (1+ n), but returns the previous value of n.
For example:
(let ((it (inf 5)))
(list (funcall it)
(funcall it)
(funcall it)
(funcall it)))
Which gives:
(5 6 7 8)
Generic iterator
The standard dolist expects a proper list as an input, there is no way you can put another kind of data and expect it to work (or maybe in an implementation-specific way).
We need a similar macro to iterate over all the values in an arbitrary iterator.
We also need to specify when iteration stops.
There are multiple possibilities here, let's define a basic iteration protocol as follows:
we can call make-iterator on any object, along with arbitrary arguments, to obtain an iterator
we can call next on an iterator to obtain the next value.
More precisely, if there is a value, next returns the value and T as a secondary value; otherwise, next returns NIL.
Let's define two generic functions:
(defgeneric make-iterator (object &key)
(:documentation "create an iterator for OBJECT and arguments ARGS"))
(defgeneric next (iterator)
(:documentation "returns the next value and T as a secondary value, or NIL"))
Using generic functions allows the user to define custom iterators, as long as they respect the specified behaviour above.
Instead of using dolist, which only works with eager sequences, we define our own macro: for.
It hides calls to make-iterator and next from the user.
In other words, for takes an object and iterates over it.
We can skip iteration with (return v) since for is implemented with loop.
(defmacro for ((value object &rest args) &body body)
(let ((it (gensym)) (exists (gensym)))
`(let ((,it (make-iterator ,object ,#args)))
(loop
(multiple-value-bind (,value ,exists) (next ,it)
(unless ,exists
(return))
,#body)))))
We assume any function object can act as an iterator, so we specialize next for values f of class function, so that the function f gets called:
(defmethod next ((f function))
"A closure is an interator"
(funcall f))
Also, we can also specialize make-iterator to make closures their own iterators (I see no other good default behaviour to provide for closures):
(defmethod make-iterator ((function function) &key)
function)
Vector iterator
For example, we can built an iterator for vectors as follows. We specialize make-iterator for values (here named vec) of class vector.
The returned iterator is a closure, so we will be able to call next on it.
The method accepts a :start argument defaulting to zero:
(defmethod make-iterator ((vec vector) &key (start 0))
"Vector iterator"
(let ((index start))
(lambda ()
(when (array-in-bounds-p vec index)
(values (aref vec (shiftf index (1+ index))) t)))))
You can now write:
(for (v "abcdefg" :start 2)
(print v))
And this prints the following characters:
#\c
#\d
#\e
#\f
#\g
List iterator
Likewise, we can build a list iterator.
Here to demonstrate other kind of iterators, let's have a custom cursor type.
(defstruct list-cursor head)
The cursor is an object which keeps a reference to the current cons-cell in the list being visited, or NIL.
(defmethod make-iterator ((list list) &key)
"List iterator"
(make-list-cursor :head list))
And we define next as follows, specializeing on list-cursor:
(defmethod next ((cursor list-cursor))
(when (list-cursor-head cursor)
(values (pop (list-cursor-head cursor)) t)))
Ranges
Common Lisp also allows methods to be specialized with EQL specializers, which means the object we give to for might be a specific keyword, for example :range.
(defmethod make-iterator ((_ (eql :range)) &key (from 0) (to :infinity) (by 1))
(check-type from number)
(check-type to (or number (eql :infinity)))
(check-type by number)
(let ((counter from))
(case to
(:infinity
(lambda () (values (incf counter by) t)))
(t
(lambda ()
(when (< counter to)
(values (incf counter by) T)))))))
A possible call for make-iterator would be:
(make-iterator :range :from 0 :to 10 :by 2)
This also returns a closure.
Here, for example, you would iterate over a range as follows:
(for (v :range :from 0 :to 10 :by 2)
(print v))
The above expands as:
(let ((#:g1463 (make-iterator :range :from 0 :to 10 :by 2)))
(loop
(multiple-value-bind (v #:g1464)
(next #:g1463)
(unless #:g1464 (return))
(print v))))
Finally, if we add small modification to inf (adding secondary value):
(defun inf (n)
(lambda ()
(values (shiftf n (1+ n)) T)))
We can write:
(for (v (inf 5))
(print v)
(when (= v 7)
(return)))
Which prints:
5
6
7
I'll show it with a library:
How to create and consume an infinite list of integers with the GTWIWTG generators library
This library, called "Generators The Way I Want Them Generated", allows to do three things:
create generators (iterators)
combine them
consume them (once).
It is not unsimilar to the nearly-classic Series.
Install the lib with (ql:quickload "gtwiwtg"). I will work in its package: (in-package :gtwiwtg).
Create a generator for an infinite list of integers, start from 0:
GTWIWTG> (range)
#<RANGE-BACKED-GENERATOR! {10042B4D83}>
We can also specify its :from, :to, :by and :inclusive parameters.
Combine this generator with others: not needed here.
Iterate over it and stop:
GTWIWTG> (for x *
(print x)
(when (= x 7)
(return)))
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
T
This solution is very practical :)

Using Lisp: define a function that takes a list and a number and returns true if the number occurs in the list

I am new to lisp and I have a problem, I'm trying to find the number in the list but it is not working. I haven't made the return statement yet
(defun num (x 'y)
(if (member x '(y)) 't nil))
(write (num 10 '(5 10 15 20)))
My output just outputs the nil instead of doing the function and I'm confused of what I am doing wrong.
Solution
(defun member-p (element list)
"Return T if the object is present in the list"
(not (null (member element list))))
The not/null pattern is equivalent to (if (member element list) t nil) but is more common.
In fact, you do not really need this separate function,
member is good enough.
The -p suffix stands for predicate, cf. integerp and upper-case-p.
Your code
You cannot quote lambda list elements, so you need to replace defun num (x 'y) with defun num (x y)
You need not quote t
Quoting '(y) makes no sense, replace it with y.
You do not need to write the function call, the REPL will do it for you.
See also
When to use ' (or quote) in Lisp?
Can you program without REPL on Lisp?
You are almost certainly expected to not just use member, but to write a function which does what you need (obviously in real life you would just use member because that's what it's for).
So. To know if an object is in a list:
if the list is empty it's not;
if the head of the list is equal to the object it is;
otherwise it is in the list if it's in the tail of the list.
And you turn this into a function very straightforwardly:
(defun num-in-list-p (n l)
;; is N in L: N is assumed to be a number, L a list of numbers
(cond ((null l)
nil)
((= n (first l))
t)
(t
(num-in-list-p n (rest l)))))
You could use the built in position function which will return the index of the number if it is in the list:
(position 1 '(5 4 3 2 1))
If you want to define your own function:
CL-USER> (defun our-member(obj lst)
(if(zerop (length lst))
nil
(if(equal(car lst)obj)
T
(our-member obj (cdr lst)))))
OUR-MEMBER
CL-USER> (our-member 1 '(5 4 3 2 1))
T
CL-USER> (our-member 99 '(1 2 3 4 5))
NIL
We can create a function called "our-member" that will take an object (in your case a number) and a list (in your case a list of numbers) as an argument. In this situation our "base-case" will be whether or not the length of the list is equal to zero. If it is and we still haven't found a match, we will return nil. Otherwise, we will check to see if the car of the list (the first element in the list) is equal to the obj that we passed. If so, we will return T (true). However, if it is not, we will call the function again passing the object and the cdr of the list (everything after the car of the list) to the function again, until there are no items left within the list. As you can see, The first example of a call to this function returns T, and the second example call returns NIL.
What makes this utility function a good example is that it essentially shows you the under workings of the member function as well and what is going on inside.

Number of atoms in a tree

I don't understand the following paragraph:
(COUNT-ATOMS ’(A (B) C)) should return five.
A, B, and C and two NILs in the tree.
Write a function COUNT-ATOMS that returns the number of atoms in a tree.
I tried this:
(defun count-atoms(l)
(cond
((null l) 0)
(t (+ (cond
((atom (car l)) 1)
(t 0))
(count-atoms (cdr l))))))
However, (COUNT-ATOMS '(A (B) C)) return 2.
How should I do to return 5 instead?
Could you explain in more details?
If you wanted to build (a (b) c) at runtime, using only cons and quote, you would write:
(cons 'a
(cons (cons 'b nil)
(cons 'c nil)))
There are 5 atoms (a, b, c and two nil) in the tree being built. In practice you could use a simpler notation, like (list 'a (list 'b) 'c).
In your function, you do not recurse into the CARS of your trees, only the CDRS. Also, when the CAR is not an atom, like when you encounter (B), you add zero (the default clause in the second cond) (edit. As kmkaplan noted, you also count zero for nil, first cond).
A simple solution is this, based on typecase:
(defun count-atoms (form)
(typecase form
(atom 1)
(cons (+ (count-atoms (car form))
(count-atoms (cdr form))))))
When you encounter an atom, the result is 1.
When you have a cons cell, you sum the number of atoms in its car and cdr.
The typecase dispatches according to the type of its argument, here form. Each clause has the following syntax: (type ...body...), where type is the name of a type and ...body... one or more expressions (an implicit progn): the last value is the return value of the typecase, if the argument matches the type type.
The first clause (atom 1) says: if form is an atom, return 1. The following one, (cons ...) says: else, if form is a cons cell, .... Here, atom is the name of a type, which represents everything that is not a cons. Granted, once you know that something is not an atom, you know that it is necessarily a cons, and the second test is redundant. However, it is more readable and any decent compiler will optimize the second test away.
There is also a function named atom, which is a predicate that tests whether a value is an atom. That's why, when you write (atom 1) on its own, in the REPL, it returns T.
See also wikipedia and Seibel's Practical Common Lisp's chapter about lists.
Your function has two problems. The first, neatly described in coredump's answer, is that your COUNT-ATOMS only recurse on the tail (CDR) and forget to recurse on the CAR element of your cons cell (L). Thus it fails to count the B atom.
The second problem is that you count NIL as 0 while it is an atom and should be counted as 1.

Assignment in Lisp

I have the following setup in Common Lisp. my-object is a list of 5 binary trees.
(defun make-my-object ()
(loop for i from 0 to 5
for nde = (init-tree)
collect nde))
Each binary tree is a list of size 3 with a node, a left child and a right child
(defstruct node
(min 0)
(max 0)
(ctr 0))
(defun vals (tree)
(car tree))
(defun left-branch (tree)
(cadr tree))
(defun right-branch (tree)
(caddr tree))
(defun make-tree (vals left right)
(list vals left right))
(defun init-tree (&key (min 0) (max 1))
(let ((n (make-node :min min :max max)))
(make-tree n '() '())))
Now, I was trying to add an element to one of the binary trees manually, like this:
(defparameter my-object (make-my-object))
(print (left-branch (car my-object))) ;; returns NIL
(let ((x (left-branch (car my-object))))
(setf x (cons (init-tree) x)))
(print (left-branch (car my-object))) ;; still returns NIL
The second call to print still returns NIL. Why is this? How can I add an element to the binary tree?
The first function is just:
(defun make-my-object ()
(loop repeat 5 collect (init-tree)))
Now you define a structure for node, but you use a list for the tree and my-object? Why aren't they structures?
Instead of car, cadr and caddr one would use first, second, third.
(let ((x (left-branch (car my-object))))
(setf x (cons (init-tree) x)))
You set the local variable x to a new value. Why? After the let the local variable is also gone. Why aren't you setting the left branch instead? You would need to define a way to do so. Remember: Lisp functions return values, not memory locations you can later set. How can you change the contents in a list? Even better: use structures and change the slot value. The structure (or even CLOS classes) has following advantages over plain lists: objects carry a type, slots are named, accessors are created, a make function is created, a type predicate is created, ...
Anyway, I would define structures or CLOS classes for node, tree and object...
Most of the code in this question isn't essential to the real problem here. The real problem comes in with the misunderstanding of this code:
(let ((x (left-branch (car my-object))))
(setf x (cons (init-tree) x)))
We can see the same kind of behavior without user-defined structures of any kind:
(let ((cell (cons 1 2)))
(print cell) ; prints (1 . 2)
(let ((x (car cell)))
(setf x 3)
(print cell))) ; prints (1 . 2)
If you understand why both print statements produce (1 . 2), then you've got enough to understand why your own code isn't doing what you (previously) expected it to do.
There are two variables in play here: cell and x. There are three values that we're concerned with 1, 2, and the cons-cell produced by the call (cons 1 2). Variables in Lisp are often called bindings; the variable, or name, is bound to a value. The variable cell is bound to the the cons cell (1 . 2). When we go into the inner let, we evaluate (car cell) to produce the value 1, which is then bound to the variable x. Then, we assign a new value, 3, to the variable x. That doesn't modify the cons cell that contains the value that x was originally bound to. Indeed, the value that was originally bound to x was produced by (car cell), and once the call to (car cell) returned, the only value that mattered was 1.
If you have some experience in other programming languages, this is directly analogous to something like
int[] array = ...;
int x = array[2]; // read from the array; assign result to x
x = 42; // doesn't modify the array
If you want to modify a structure, you need to setf the appropriate part of the structure. E.g.:
(let ((cell (cons 1 2)))
(print cell) ; prints (1 . 2)
(setf (car cell) 3)
(print cell)) ; prints (3 . 2)

Common Lisp: non-nil arguments and their names to alist, how?

I am quite new to Common Lisp and programming, and I'm trying to write a certain function that turns all non-nil args into an alist. The only way I can think of so far is:
(let ((temp nil))
(if arg1
(setf temp (acons 'arg1 arg1 nil)))
(if arg2
(setf temp (acons 'arg2 arg2 temp)))
...
(if arg20-ish
(setf temp (acons 'arg20-ish arg20-ish temp)))
(do-something-with temp))
which does not seem very elegant, it would be messy with many arguments and when these need to be changed. I am looking for a smarter way to do this, both for the sake of writing this particular function and for learning how to think in Lisp and/or functional programming.
The tricky part for me is figuring out how to get the names of the arguments or what symbol to use, without hand coding each case. If &rest provided arg names it would be easy to filter out NILs with loop or mapcar, but since it doesn't, I can't see how to "automate" this.
I'm totally interested in other solutions than the one described, if people think this way is unnatural.
Edit: Below is an example of what I am trying to do:
An object is created, with a non-fixed number of data pairs and some tags, e.g.:
user = "someone"
creation-time = (get-universal-time)
color-of-sky = "blue"
temperature-in-celsius = 32
language = "Common Lisp"
...
tags = '("one" "two" "three")
These properties (i.e. key/arg names) could be different each time. The new object will then be added to a collection; I thought the array might work well since I want constant access time and only need a numeric ID.
The collection will hold more and more such custom objects, indefinitely.
I want to be able to quickly access all objects matching any combination of any of the tags used in these objects.
Since the array is supposed to store more and more data over a long period, I don't want to parse every item in it each time I need to search for a tag. Thus I also store the index of each object with a given tag in a hash-table, under the tag name. I have written this function, what I find difficult is figuring out how to collect the data and turn it into an alist or anything that I can easily parse, index, and store.
This macro will define a function that turns its non-nil arguments into an alist bound during execution of the body:
(defmacro defnamed (fun-name alist-sym (&rest args) &body body)
`(defun ,fun-name (,#args)
(let ((,alist-sym))
,#(mapcar
(lambda (s)
`(when ,s
(push (cons ',s ,s) ,alist-sym)))
(reverse args))
,#body)))
Demonstration:
(defnamed make-my alist (a b c)
alist)
(make-my 1 NIL 3)
=> ((A . 1) (C . 3))
Here's a sort of solution using macros:
(defmacro named-args (fun-name alist-sym (&rest syms) &body body)
`(defun ,fun-name (&key ,#syms)
(declare (special ,#syms))
(let ((,alist-sym
(loop
for s in ',syms
collecting (cons s (symbol-value s)))))
,#body)))
You can then use it with something like
(named-args f u (a b c)
(format t "~A~%" u))
which expands to
(DEFUN F (&KEY A B C)
(DECLARE (SPECIAL A B C))
(LET ((U
(LOOP FOR S IN '(A B C)
COLLECTING (CONS S (SYMBOL-VALUE S)))))
(FORMAT T "~A~%" U)))
Finally, calling will give
(f :a 3) => ((A . 3) (B) (C))
Note that we need the special declaration otherwise symbol-value doesn't work (you need a global binding for symbol-value). I couldn't find a way to get rid of that.
Looking at your question again, it looks like you actually don't want the keyword arguments that didn't get passed. In which case you could parse a &rest argument (although that's a flat list, so you'd need to map along it in twos) or you could modify the macro as follows:
(defmacro named-args (fun-name alist-sym (&rest syms) &body body)
`(defun ,fun-name (&key ,#syms)
(declare (special ,#syms))
(let ((,alist-sym
(loop
for s in ',syms
when (symbol-value s)
collecting (cons s (symbol-value s)))))
,#body)))
and then you get
(f :a 3) => ((A . 3))