Following simple code is not loading in Lisp:
(defun helloworld (name)
format t ("~%Hello from Lisp, ~A!" name )
)
I have also tried to put parenthesis around format statement, but still it does not work. The error is:
*** - SYSTEM::%EXPAND-FORM: invalid form ("~%Hello from Lisp, ~A!" NAME)
Where is the error?
The error is caused by the wrong use of the parentheses. Try this:
(defun helloworld (name)
(format t "~%Hello from Lisp, ~A!" name))
Remeber, you must always use forms, i.e. (operator arguments) instead of commands as in other programming languages.
To reduce the number of these errors, you could use a Common-Lisp aware editor, that align the lines according to their syntactic meaning. One of the best editor in this respect is the combination Emacs + SLIME, but there are other possibilities.
Related
I love Racket's #;. I want to see it in every language that I ever use again. Can it be added to other Lisps via their macro systems? Or does the commenting character break the macro system's ability to read the code?
A sufficient answer will demonstrate a macro being built in any Lisp other than Racket that allows for a change in the commenting system. You need not actually implement Racket's #;, but I would like it if you do. Lisps with the least similarity to Racket, e.g. Clojure or any non-Scheme will be particularity nice to see.
#; isn't a macro, it's what Common lisp would call a readmacro: what it does is defined at read time, not later than that. Read macros which aim to completely suppress input are mildly perilous because there needs to be a way of saying 'read the following thing, but ignore it', and that's only possible if any other readmacros behave well: there's nothing to stop someone defining a readmacro which produces some side-effect even if reading is suppressed.
However, well-behaved readmacros (which includes all of the standard ones and the rest of the standard reader) in CL won't do that: they'll listen to whether reading is being suppressed, and behave accordingly.
CL allows you to do this as standard by using its conditionalisation on features, and in particular #+(or) <expr> will always skip <expr>.
But you can define your own: #; is not predefined so you can define it:
(set-dispatch-macro-character
#\# #\;
(lambda (stream char n)
(declare (ignore char))
(let ((*read-suppress* t))
(dotimes (i (or n 1) (values))
(read stream)))))
After this, or at least with a better tested version of this, then #; <expr> (or obviously #;<expr>) will read as whitespace, and #2; ... ... will skip two following expressions:
> (let ((x #;1 #2; 2 3 4)) x)
4
What you are looking for is #+(or) reader macro.
Since (or) evaluates to nil, the condition is always false the following form is never evaluated.
I'm trying to write an emacs LISP function to un-indent the region
(rigidly). I can pass prefix arguments to indent-code-rigidly or
indent-rigidly or indent-region and they all work fine, but I don't
want to always have to pass a negative prefix argument to shift things
left.
My current code is as below but it seems to do nothing:
(defun undent ()
"un-indent rigidly."
(interactive)
(list
(setq fline (line-number-at-pos (region-beginning)))
(setq lline (line-number-at-pos (region-end)))
(setq curIndent (current-indentation))
;;(indent-rigidly fline lline (- curIndent 1))
(indent-region fline lline 2)
;;(message "%d %d" curIndent (- curIndent 1))
)
)
I gather that (current-indentation) won't get me the indentation of the first line
of the region, but of the first line following the region (so a second quesiton is
how to get that!). But even when I just use a constant for the column (as shown,
I don't see this function do any change.
Though if I uncomment the (message) call, it displays reasonable numbers.
GNU Emacs 24.3.1, on Ubuntu. And in case it matters, I use
(setq-default indent-tabs-mode nil) and (cua-mode).
I must be missing something obvious... ?
All of what Tim X said is true, but if you just need something that works, or an example to show you what direction to take your own code, I think you're looking for something like this:
(defun unindent-rigidly (start end arg &optional interactive)
"As `indent-rigidly', but reversed."
(interactive "r\np\np")
(indent-rigidly start end (- arg) interactive))
All this does is call indent-rigidly with an appropriately transformed prefix argument. If you call this with a prefix argument n, it will act as if you had called indent-rigidly with the argument -n. If you omit the prefix argument, it will behave as if you called indent-rigidly with the argument -1 (instead of going into indent-rigidly's interactive mode).
There are a number of problems with your function, including some vary
fundamental elisp requirements. Highly recommend reading the Emacs Lisp
Reference Manual (bundled with emacs). If you are new to programming and lisp,
you may also find An Introduction to Emacs Lisp useful (also bundled with
Emacs).
A few things to read about which will probably help
Read the section on the command loop from the elisp reference. In particular,
look at the node which describes how to define a new command and the use of
'interactive', which you will need if you want to bind your function to a key
or call it with M-x.
Read the section on variables from the lisp reference
and understand variable scope (local v global). Look at using 'let' rather
than 'setq' and what the difference is.
Read the section on 'positions' in the elisp reference. In particular, look at
'save-excursion' and 'save-restriction'. Understanding how to define and use
the region is also important.
It isn't clear if your writing this function just as a learning exercise or
not. However, just in case you are doing it because it is something you need to
do rather than just something to learn elisp, be sure to go through the Emacs
manual and index. What you appear to need is a common and fairly well supported
requirement. It can get a little complicated if programming modes are involved
(as opposed to plain text). However, with emacs, if what you need seems like
something which would be a common requirement, you can be fairly confident it is
already there - you just need to find it (which can be a challenge at first).
A common convention is for functions/commands to be defined which act 'in
reverse' when supplied with a negative or universal argument. Any command which
has this ability can also be called as a function in elisp code with the
argument necessary to get that behaviour, so understanding the inter-play
between commands, functions and calling conventions is important.
When I enter this at the REPL prompt:
(setf (readtable-case *readtable*) :invert)
I get this error message:
Error in SETF [or a callee]: Cannot expand the SETF form (READTABLE-CASE
*READTABLE*).
Why do I get this error?
(format nil "~A ~A" (lisp-implementation-type) (lisp-implementation-version)) says "Kyoto Common Lisp GCL 2.6.2". The result of (eq 'readtable-case 'cl:readtable-case) is T. What does this all mean please?
The second expression means you're using the correct symbol. The first indicates which Lisp implementation you're using: That should be GNU Common Lisp 2.6.2
After some search I found this message on the gcl-devel list saying ...
The problem appears to be this line:
(setf (readtable-case *readtable*) readcase)
in randomly-check-readability. I'd recommend this as the next
ansi issue to resolve, since it's blocking the tests.
... with a subject line "ansi-tests in 2.7.0". The message is from 2004.
Bottom line: I guess you need a more recent or even* a different Lisp implementation.
(* as mentioned by Rainer Joswig the issue also affects the current 2.6.12 release)
I guess all major Lisp implementations support this. CLISP 2.49 does, SBCL and CCL probably do, as far as I know ECL does also.
I have written a few nearly identical functions, except for their names. For example:
; x is name, such as function/paragraph/line/etc.
(defun my-x-function
(interactive)
(mark-x) (do-more-stuff) (modify-x))
Is there a way to automatically generate such functions? I have a feeling this is what macros do, but I am not sure how to use them. Any help, maybe including a small example would be great.
Thanks!
Yep, that's exactly what macros do. Here's a straightforward macro that builds functions according to the pattern you specified:
(defmacro make-my-function (name)
(list 'defun (intern (format "my-%s-function" name)) ()
(list 'interactive)
(list (intern (format "mark-%s" name)))
(list 'do-more-stuff)
(list (intern (format "modify-%s" name)))))
You can copy this macro to a *scratch* buffer in Emacs and evaluate it, and then check that it works like this:
(make-my-function x) ; type control-J here
my-x-function ; <-- Emacs's output
(symbol-function 'my-x-function) ; type control-J here
(lambda nil (interactive) (mark-x) (do-more-stuff) (modify-x)) ; <-- Emacs's output
More commonly one would use the backquote facility to write macros more concisely, but all macros essentially work in the same manner as the above example.
Macros can do that, but there are lots of template modules for emacs to do similar work. I use a thing called yasnippet.el to do quick code-generation things. For example, in a C-source file, if I type for<TAB>, I get a for loop template; it allows me to fill in the template, setting the variable name, limits, and internal loop contents.
looks like this:
You can set up templates for anything you like. Function definitions, if statements, switch statements, whatever. Set up different templates for different modes. The template for a for loop in C is different than the template for a for loop in C#, and so on. Very handy.
Still struggling to understand what best practices are with respect to macros. I'm attempting to write a macro which defines packages on the fly.
(defmacro def-dynamic-package (name)
`(defpackage ,(intern (string-upcase name) "KEYWORD")
(:use :common-lisp)))
This works fine only for expressions such as:
(def-dynamic-package "helloworld")
But fails miserably for something like this:
(defun make-package-from-path (path)
(def-dynamic-package (pathname-name path)))
or
(defun make-package-from-path (path)
(let ((filename (pathname-path)))
(def-dynamic-package filename)))
I understand how most basic macros work but how to implement this one escapes me.
defpackage is a macro. As such, it's expanded at compile-time, not run-time. What you want is something that is called at run-time in order to make a new package. Therefore, defpackage can't do anything for you.
Fortunately, there's also make-package, which provides defpackage's features as a function. Use it instead of defpackage.
Failure is to be expected here, because a macro is used when its argument should not be evaluated.
In your first make-package-from-path, the def-dynamic-package will receive as argument a list that is EQUAL to the value of the following expression:
(list 'pathname-name 'path)
In your case, you only want a function:
(defun def-dynamic-package (name)
(defpackage (string-upcase name)
(:use :common-lisp)))
BTW, if you check the CLHS, you'll see that the first argument of defpackage needn't be a symbol, but any string designator.