Let's consider the following functions:
(defun test (x)
"X."
(request "http://example.com"
:parser 'json-read
:complete (cl-function
(lambda (&key response &allow-other-keys)
(message "%s" x)))))
(defun test2 (x)
"X."
(funcall (cl-function (lambda (z) (message "%s" z))) x))
Calling (test2 3) Works fine and produces the desired message. Calling (test 3), however, fails with the following error:
error in process sentinel: let*: Symbol’s value as variable is void: x
error in process sentinel: Symbol’s value as variable is void: x
My guess is that request is a macro doing something weird to variable scoping. Unfortunately, the documentation does not mention anything like this. Is there a way to overcome that?
request is probably an ordinary function.
The problem is that the lambda you pass to it is not called immediately but is
saved and called later:
(defun make-function (x)
(lambda () (message "received %s" x)))
=> make-function
(defconst f (make-function 3))
=> f
(funcall f)
=> Lisp error: (void-variable x)
x that make-function bound no longer exists.
This is because by default Emacs uses dynamic binding and you need lexical binding to get the behavior you want.
If you add
;; -*- lexical-binding:t -*-
to the first line of your file, it will be compiled with lexical binding and
the code above will produce the message received 3 instead of an error.
Common Lisp newbie here. I am having trouble understanding parameter passing in Lisp functions. For example, imagine the following function definition in Common Lisp (say, SBCL):
(defun foo (x <&-keyword goes here> args)
(let ((v (make-hash-table args)))
(setf (gethash "foo" v) x)
v))
My question is: is there a &-keyword I could specify to pass keyword arguments in foo to make-hash-table in this situation? I already tried &rest as a &-keyword, and it always gives me the following warning:
; caught WARNING:
; The function MAKE-HASH-TABLE is called with odd number of keyword arguments.
I also read about &allow-other-keys as a possible &-keyword, yet don't seem to find how can the other keys be used by make-hash-table within foo. Thus, I'm stumped. Can keyword parameters be passed to internal function calls in Common Lisp? If so, how?
What you are looking for is apply:
(defun foo (x &rest mht-arguments)
(let ((v (apply #'make-hash-table mht-arguments)))
(setf (gethash "foo" v) x)
v))
See also my other answer on how to combine that with &key.
For a course project I got to write a program in lisp.
The program should contain the most important lisp functions, their input and output parameters and maybe optional parameters.
For example: function - first, input - list, output - object (first member of list).
The program should work in 2 different ways:
You give the program the name of a function and it should return the function parameters.
You enter function parameters and if a function with these parameters exists, it should return the name of the function.
My questions:
What would be the right way to approach a task like this in lisp? I think maybe a tree would be a way to handle it? (make a tree with all functions and parameters and then write a program which handles it).
Does anyone have a better idea than that to approach this task? Or some suggestions where / how to start? Or Tutorials containing any info?
At the moment I'm a little lost how to start. Any help you can give would be highly appreciated.
English isn't my first language, so I hope everything is understandable.
Greetings.
First of all take a look to prepare your common lisp development environment. After that I think that you should, investigate:
create functions with defun,
declare types.
and things like that. Ffter that take a look to two common lisp functions:
documentation
describe
Here is a little example:
CL-USER> (defun my-sum (a b) "Add my-sum parameters A and B." (+ a b))
MY-SUM
CL-USER> (my-sum 2 3)
5 (3 bits, #x5, #o5, #b101)
CL-USER> (describe #'my-sum)
#<FUNCTION MY-SUM>
[compiled function]
Lambda-list: (A B)
Derived type: (FUNCTION (T T) (VALUES NUMBER &OPTIONAL))
Documentation:
Add my-sum parameters A and B.
Source form:
(SB-INT:NAMED-LAMBDA MY-SUM
(A B)
"Add my-sum parameters A and B."
(BLOCK MY-SUM (+ A B)))
; No values
CL-USER> (documentation 'my-sum 'function)
"Add my-sum parameters A and B."
CL-USER> (defun my-sum (a b) "Add my-sum parameters A and B." (declare (type fixnum a b)) (+ a b))
WARNING: redefining COMMON-LISP-USER::MY-SUM in DEFUN
MY-SUM
CL-USER> (describe #'my-sum)
#<FUNCTION MY-SUM>
[compiled function]
Lambda-list: (A B)
Derived type: (FUNCTION (FIXNUM FIXNUM)
(VALUES
(INTEGER -9223372036854775808 9223372036854775806)
&OPTIONAL))
Documentation:
Add my-sum parameters A and B.
Source form:
(SB-INT:NAMED-LAMBDA MY-SUM
(A B)
"Add my-sum parameters A and B."
(DECLARE (TYPE FIXNUM A B))
(BLOCK MY-SUM (+ A B)))
; No values
Finally, one last tip to work with strings from the output of describe:
CL-USER> (with-output-to-string (*standard-output*)
(describe #'my-sum))
"#<FUNCTION MY-SUM>
[compiled function]
Lambda-list: (A B)
Derived type: (FUNCTION (FIXNUM FIXNUM)
(VALUES
(INTEGER -9223372036854775808 9223372036854775806)
&OPTIONAL))
Documentation:
Add my-sum parameters A and B.
Source form:
(SB-INT:NAMED-LAMBDA MY-SUM
(A B)
\"Add my-sum parameters A and B.\"
(DECLARE (TYPE FIXNUM A B))
(BLOCK MY-SUM (+ A B)))
"
At face value, the task seems to be the construction of a simple symbolic database in memory, which is searchable in two ways. Entries in the database are understood to be functions. The "output parameters" can probably be understood as one or more return values. These things are not named in ANSI Lisp. A useful interpretation of the task is to give return values symbolic labels anyway. Moreover, we can perhaps use type symbols for the return values as well as parameters. So for instance, a database entry for the cons function might look like:
(cons (t t) cons) ;; function named cons takes two objects, returns a cons
The type t is the supertype of all types in ANSI Lisp; it means "any value".
A list of such records can be put into some global variable. Then we write a function that is perhaps named get-params-by-name such that:
(get-params-by-name 'cons) -> (t t)
and another one: get-names-by-params:
(get-names-by-params '(t t)) -> (cons)
This function returns all the matching functions, as a list. More than one function could have this signature.
The trick is then finding a good representation of optional and rest parameters. It could just be the same notation that the language uses:
(list (&rest t) list) ;; list takes rest arguments of any type, returns list
Since we are only interested in exact matches, we don't have to actually parse the &rest notation. When the user queries by parameter, their query object will be literally (&rest t), in that same syntax.
The equal function can be used to tell whether two lists of symbols are identical:
(equal '(&rest t) '(&rest t)) -> t
(equal '(t t) '(t t)) -> nil
So the exercise is not difficult: just mapping through lists, looking for matches.
(defun get-name-by-params (database params)
(let ((matching-entries (remove-if-not (lambda (entry)
(equal (second entry) params))
database)))
(mapcar #'first matching-entries))) ;; just the names, please
Here, the function takes the database list as a parameter, instead of referring to a global variable. The overall program into which we integrate this can provide alternative interfaces, but this is our low-level lookup function.
Test:
[1]> (get-name-by-params '((cons (t t) cons) (list (&rest t) list)) '(integer string))
NIL
[3]> (get-name-by-params '((cons (t t) cons) (list (&rest t) list)) '(t t))
(CONS)
[4]> (get-name-by-params '((cons (t t) cons) (list (&rest t) list)) '(&rest t))
(LIST)
I'd get clarification from the instructor whether this is the right interpretation of the vague requirements, before the assignment is due.
Given that this is a course project I'm going to provide an incomplete answer, and leave you to fill in the blanks.
What the program should do
My interpretation of what you're being asked to do is to provide a utility which will
given the name of a function return its argument list (called a 'lambda list' below);
given a lambda list return all the functions with that lambda list.
So, first of all you need to decide whether two lambda lists are the same or not. As an example is (x) the same as (y), as a lambda list? Yes, it is: the names of formal parameters only matter in the implementation of a function and you generally won't know them: both of these lambda lists mean 'function of one argument'.
The interestring thing is optional arguments of various kinds: (a &optional b) is clearly not the same as (a), but is the same as (b &optional c) but is it the same as (a &optional (b 1 bp))? In this code I say that yes, it is the same: default values and present parameters for optional arguments don't alter whether lambda lists are the same. That's because very often these are implementation details of functions.
A package
We'll put it into a package so it's clear what the interface is:
(defpackage :com.stackoverflow.lisp.fdesc-search
(:use :cl)
(:export
#:defun/recorded
#:record-function-description
#:clear-recorded-functions
#:name->lambda-list
#:lambda-list->names))
(in-package :com.stackoverflow.lisp.fdesc-search)
Recording information
So, to start with we need a mechanism of recording information about functions. We'll do this with a macro which is like defun but records information, which I'll call defun/recorded. We want to be able to record information about things even before the program exists & we do this by having defun/recorded stash 'pending' records on a list which, once the program exists, it will pull off and record properly. That lets us use defun/recorded throughout this code.
;;; These define whether there is a recorder, and if not where pending
;;; records should be stashed
;;;
(defvar *function-description-recorder* nil)
(defvar *pending-function-records* '())
(defmacro defun/recorded (name lambda-list &body forms)
"Like DEFUN but record function information."
;; This deals with bootstrapping by, if there is not yet a recording
;; function, stashing pending records in *PENDING-FUNCTION-RECORDS*,
;; which gets replayed into the recorder at the point it becomes
;; available.
`(progn
;; do the DEFUN first, which ensures that the LAMBDA-LIST is OK
(defun ,name ,lambda-list ,#forms)
(if *function-description-recorder*
(progn
(dolist (p (reverse *pending-function-records*))
(funcall *function-description-recorder*
(car p) (cdr p)))
(setf *pending-function-records* '())
(funcall *function-description-recorder*
',name ',lambda-list))
(push (cons ',name ',lambda-list)
*pending-function-records*))
',name))
Matching lambda lists, first steps
Now we want to be able to match lambda lists. Since we're obviously going to store things indexed by lambda list in some kind of tree we only really need to be able to deal with matching elements of them. And (see above) we don't care about things like default values. I've chosen to do this by first of all simplifying lambda lists to remove them and then matching the simplifies elements: there are other approaches.
simplify-lambda-list does the simplification and argument-matches-p tells you if two arguments match: the interesting bit is that it needs to know about lambda list keywords, which must match exactly, while everything else matches anything. The lambda-list-keywords constant is conveniently provided by the CL standard.
(defun/recorded simplify-lambda-list (ll)
;; Simplify a lambda list by replacing optional arguments with inits
;; by their names. This does not validate the list
(loop for a in ll
collect (etypecase a
(symbol a)
(list (first a)))))
(defun/recorded argument-matches-p (argument prototype)
;; Does an argument match a prototype.
(unless (symbolp argument)
(error "argument ~S isn't a symbol" argument))
(unless (symbolp prototype)
(error "prototype ~S isn't a symbol" prototype))
(if (find-if (lambda (k)
(or (eq argument k) (eq prototype k)))
lambda-list-keywords)
(eq argument prototype)
t))
Function descriptions (partial)
Information about functions is stored in objects called fdescs: the definition of these objects is not given here, but one question we need to answer is 'do two fdescs refer to versions of the same function?' Well, they do if the names of the functions are the same. Remember that function names do not have to be symbols ((defun (setf x) (...) ...) is allowed), so we must compare with equal not eql:
(defun/recorded fdescs-equivalent-p (fd1 fd2)
;; do FD1 & FD2 refer to the same function?
(equal (fdesc-name fd1)
(fdesc-name fd2)))
Storing fdescs indexed by lambda list (partial)
To index things efficiently by lambda list we build a tree. The nodes in this tree are called lambda-list-tree-nodes and their definition is not given here.
There are functions which intern a fdesc in a tree, and which return a list of fdescs indexed by a given lambda list. Neither have an implementation here, but this is what they look like:
(defun/recorded intern-lambda-list (lambda-list tree-node fdesc)
;; return the node where it was interned
...)
(defun/recorded lambda-list-fdescs (lambda-list tree-node)
;; Return a list of fdescs for a lambda list & T if there were any
;; or NIL & NIL if there were not (I don't think () & T is possible,
;; but it might be in some future version)
...)
The implementation of these functions will probably need to use use argument-matches-p and fdescs-equivalent-p.
The top-level databases (slightly partial)
Now we can define the top-level database objects: the root of the tree for indexing by lambda list, and a hashtable for indexing by name
(defvar *lambda-list-tree* (make-lambda-list-tree-node))
(defvar *tree-nodes-by-name* (make-hash-table :test #'equal))
Note that *tree-nodes-by-name* maps from names to the node where the information about that function is stored: that's done to make redefinition easier, as seen in the following function:
(defun/recorded record-function-description (name lambda-list)
"Record information about a function called NAME with lambda list LAMBDA-LIST.
Replace any existing information abot NAME. Return NAME."
(let ((fdesc (make-fdesc :name name :lambda-list lambda-list)))
;; First of all remove any existing information
(multiple-value-bind (node foundp) (gethash name *tree-nodes-by-name*)
(when foundp
(setf (lambda-list-tree-node-values node)
(delete fdesc (lambda-list-tree-node-values node)
:test #'fdescs-equivalent-p))))
(setf (gethash name *tree-nodes-by-name*)
(intern-lambda-list lambda-list *lambda-list-tree* fdesc)))
name)
Note that this function first of all looks up any existing information for name, and if it exists it removes it from the node where it was found. This makes sure that function redefinition does not leave obsolete information in the tree.
This function is the actual recorder which defun/recorded wants to know about, so tell it that:
(setf *function-description-recorder*
#'record-function-description)
Now the next time we invoke defun/recorded it will bootstrap the system by inserting all the the pending definitions.
record-function-description is part of the API to the package: it can be used to record information about functions we don't define.
User-interface functions
Apart from defun/recorded & record-function-description we want some functions which let us make enquiries into the database, as well as one which resets things:
(defun/recorded clear-recorded-functions ()
"Clear function description records. Return no values"
(setf *lambda-list-tree* (make-lambda-list-tree-node)
*tree-nodes-by-name* (make-hash-table :test #'equal))
(values))
(defun/recorded name->lambda-list (name)
"Look up a function by name.
Return either its lambda list & T if it is found, or NIL & NIL if not."
(multiple-value-bind (node foundp) (gethash name *tree-nodes-by-name*)
(if foundp
(values
(fdesc-lambda-list
(find-if (lambda (fd)
(equal (fdesc-name fd) name))
(lambda-list-tree-node-values node)))
t)
(values nil nil))))
(defun/recorded lambda-list->names (lambda-list)
"find function names matching a lambda-list.
Return a list of name & T if there are any, or NIL & NIL if none.
Note that lambda lists are matched so that argument names do not match, and arguments with default values or presentp parameters match just on the argument."
(multiple-value-bind (fdescs foundp) (lambda-list-fdescs lambda-list
*lambda-list-tree*)
(if foundp
(values (mapcar #'fdesc-name fdescs) t)
(values nil nil))))
And that's it.
Examples
After compiling, loading & using the package (with the missing bits added) we can first inject some useful extra functions into it (this is just a random scattering)
> (dolist (x '(car cdr null))
(record-function-description x '(thing)))
nil
> (dolist (x '(car cdr))
(record-function-description `(setf ,x) '(new thing)))
nil
> (record-function-description 'cons '(car cdr))
cons
> (record-function-description 'list '(&rest args))
Now we can make some enquiries:
> (lambda-list->names '(x))
(null cdr
car
lambda-list->names
name->lambda-list
com.stackoverflow.lisp.fdesc-search::simplify-lambda-list)
t
> (lambda-list->names '(&rest anything))
(list)
t
> (name->lambda-list 'cons)
(car cdr)
t
An example of storing things in trees
Below is some code which demonstrates one approach to storing information in trees (often known as tries). This is not usable above for a lot of reasons, but reading it might help implement the missing parts.
;;;; Storing things in trees of nodes
;;;
;;; Node protocol
;;;
;;; Nodes have values which may or may not be bound, and which may be
;;; assigned. Things may be interned in (trees of) nodes with a
;;; value, and the value associated with a thing may be retrieved
;;; along with an indicator as to whether it is present in the tree
;;; under the root.
;;;
(defgeneric node-value (node)
;; the immediate value of a node
)
(defgeneric (setf node-value) (new node)
;; Set the immediate value of a node
)
(defgeneric node-value-boundp (node)
;; Is a node's value bound?
)
(defgeneric intern-thing (root thing value)
;; intern a thing in a root, returning the value
(:method :around (root thing value)
;; Lazy: this arround method just makes sure that primary methods
;; don't need to beother returning the value
(call-next-method)
value))
(defgeneric thing-value (root thing)
;; return two values: the value of THING in ROOT and T if is it present, or
;; NIL & NIL if not
)
;;; Implementatation for STRING-TRIE-NODEs, which store strings
;;;
;;; The performance of these will be bad if large numbers of strings
;;; with characters from a large alphabet are stored: how might you
;;; fix this without making the nodes enormous?
;;;
(defclass string-trie-node ()
;; a node in a string trie. This is conceptually some kind of
;; special case of an abstract 'node' class, but that doesn't
;; actually exist.
((children-map :accessor string-trie-node-children-map
:initform '())
(value :accessor node-value)))
(defmethod node-value-boundp ((node string-trie-node))
(slot-boundp node 'value))
(defmethod intern-thing ((root string-trie-node) (thing string) value)
;; intern a string into a STRING-TRIE-NODE, storing VALUE
(let ((pmax (length thing)))
(labels ((intern-loop (node p)
(if (= p pmax)
(setf (node-value node) value)
(let ((next-maybe (assoc (char thing p)
(string-trie-node-children-map node)
:test #'char=)))
(if next-maybe
(intern-loop (cdr next-maybe) (1+ p))
(let ((next (cons (char thing p)
(make-instance (class-of node)))))
(push next (string-trie-node-children-map node))
(intern-loop (cdr next) (1+ p))))))))
(intern-loop root 0))))
(defmethod thing-value ((root string-trie-node) (thing string))
;; Return the value associated with a string in a node & T or NIL &
;; NIL if there is no value for this string
(let ((pmax (length thing)))
(labels ((value-loop (node p)
(if (= p pmax)
(if (node-value-boundp node)
(values (node-value node) t)
(values nil nil))
(let ((next (assoc (char thing p)
(string-trie-node-children-map node)
:test #'char=)))
(if next
(value-loop (cdr next) (1+ p))
(values nil nil))))))
(value-loop root 0))))
;;; Draw node trees in LW
;;;
#+LispWorks
(defgeneric graph-node-tree (node))
(:method ((node string-trie-node))
(capi:contain
(make-instance 'capi:graph-pane
:roots `((nil . ,node))
:children-function (lambda (e)
(string-trie-node-children-map (cdr e)))
:edge-pane-function (lambda (pane parent child)
(declare (ignore pane parent))
(make-instance
'capi:labelled-line-pinboard-object
:text (format nil "~A" (car child))))
:print-function (lambda (n)
(let ((node (cdr n)))
(format nil "~A"
(if (node-value-boundp node)
(node-value node)
""))))))))
I'm trying to pass one method to another in elisp, and then
have that method execute it. Here is an example:
(defun t1 ()
"t1")
(defun t2 ()
"t1")
(defun call-t (t)
; how do I execute "t"?
(t))
; How do I pass in method reference?
(call-t 't1)
First, I'm not sure that naming your function t is helping as 't' is used as the truth value in lisp.
That said, the following code works for me:
(defun test-func-1 () "test-func-1"
(interactive "*")
(insert-string "testing callers"))
(defun func-caller (callee)
"Execute callee"
(funcall callee))
(func-caller 'test-func-1)
Please note the use of 'funcall', which triggers the actual function call.
The note towards the end of "§13.7 Anonymous Functions" in the Emacs Lisp manual says that you can quote functions with #' instead of ' to signal to the byte compiler that the symbol always names a function.
Above answers are okey, but you can do something more interesting with defmacro, wich evaluates functions later for some reason:
(defun n1 ()
"n1")
(defmacro call-n (n)
(apply n))
(call-n (n1))
A practical example with a for loop that takes any amount of functions and their arguments:
(defmacro for (i &optional i++ &rest body)
"c-like for-loop"
(unless (numberp i++) (push i++ body) (setq i++ 1))
(while (/= i 0)
(let ((args 0))
(while (nth args body)
(apply (car (nth args body))
(cdr (nth args body)))
(setq args (1+ args))))
(setq i (- i i++))
)
)
I want to define a function with a parameter that defines another function with that parameter as the name.
example that dont work:
(DEFUN custom (name op const var)
(DEFUN name (var) (op const var)))
The problem is that name isnt evaluated and so the function that is defined is always called name.
I know that FUNCALL and APPLY can evaluate parameter dynamically, but i don't know how to call FUNCALL DEFUN... correctly.
I don't think you can use nested defuns.
You can either use a defun to return a lambda:
(defun custom (op const)
(lambda (arg) (funcall op const arg)))
and then use fdefinition:
(setf (fdefinition '+42) (custom '+ '42))
or use defmacro:
(defmacro custom (name op const)
(let ((arg (gensym)))
`(defun ,name (,arg)
(,op ,const ,arg))))
(custom +42 + 42)
PS. I think you need to explain why you are trying to do this, then we will be able to explain your options better.
It seems to me you might want to curry a function. Imagine you did this:
(defun curry (op arg1)
(lambda (&rest args) (apply op (cons arg1 args))))
(funcall (curry #'+ 10) 20) ; ==> 30
(mapcar (curry #'+ 10) '(1 2 3 4)) ; ==> (11 12 13 14)
Now defun makes a function in the global namespace always. It's not like in Scheme where it creates a closure. To do the same as defun we use symbol-function and setf:
(defun create-curried (name op arg1)
(setf (symbol-function name)
(lambda (&rest args) (apply op (cons arg1 args)))))
(create-curried '+x #'+ 10) ; ==> function
(+x 20) ; ==> 30
;; since it's a function, it even works with higher order functions
(mapcar create-curried '(+x -x /x *x) (list #'+ #'- #'/ #'*) '(10 10 10 10))
(/x 2) ; ==> 5
Last. With macros you can prettify it.
(defmacro defun-curried (newname oldname arg)
(if (and (symbolp newname) (symbolp oldname))
`(create-curried ',newname (function ,oldname) ,arg)
(error "Newname and Oldname need to be symbols")))
(defun-curried +xx + 20)
(+xx 10) ; ==> 30
oldname is taken from the lexical scope so you may use flet or labels with this but it ends up being global, just like with defun.
The main problem is that DEFUN isn't a function, it's a macro that treats its arguments specially (specifically, it doesn't evaluate "the function name", "the argument list", not "the function body").
You could probably make something work by careful use of (setf (symbol-function ...) ...), something like:
(defun define-custom-function (name op const)
(setf (symbol-function name) (lambda (var) (funcall op const var))))
This binds the function definition of the symbol to an anonymous function that calls your "operator" on your fed-in constant.
* (defun define-custom-function (name op const)
(setf (symbol-function name) (lambda (var) (funcall op const var))))
DEFINE-CUSTOM-FUNCTION
* (define-custom-function 'add3 #'+ 3)
#<CLOSURE (LAMBDA (VAR) :IN DEFINE-CUSTOM-FUNCTION) {1002A4760B}>
* (add3 5)
8
However, unless you absolutely need to define (or re-define) these custom functions dynamically, you are probably better off defining a custom DEFUN-like macro.