An Object in Lisp. Part 5

Destructuring Bind

… binds the variables specified in lambda-list to the corresponding values in the tree structure resulting from the evaluation of expression; then destructuring-bind evaluates forms.

‘destructuring-bind‘ is a wonderful macro. The first thing you do is hand it a lambda list and a list of values. It acts like a pattern matcher. If the list of values does not match up to the lambda list it will throw an error.

Here is what I’m talking about:

(defun test-d-bind (&rest args)
  (destructuring-bind (a &optional (b 3) &rest x &key c (d a)) args
    (list a b c d x))

(test-d-bind nil)
;>>(NIL 3 NIL NIL NIL)
(test-d-bind 1 6 :d 8 :c 9 :d 10)
;>>(1 6 9 8 (:D 8 :C 9 :D 10)

Parameter Keywords

A macro lambda list can contain the lambda list keywords:

&allow-other-keys                 &environment

&rest                             &aux

&key                              &whole

&body                             &optional

An ordinary lambda list can contain the lambda list keywords:

&allow-other-keys                 &key

&rest                             &aux
&optional

The object framework that I’ve been covering couldn’t handle parameter keywords. Now it can. This is all due to destructuring-bind. A very universal macro. I believe that because of this macro I will be able to add generic function for all objects and also multiple function signatures.

(defmacro make-property (name args)
  (let ((g (gensym))
        (r-args (remove-if-not-symbol args)))
    (multiple-value-bind (sym-name key-name) (symbol-and-keyword name)
      `(progn
         (defun ,sym-name (obj &rest ,g)
           (block ,sym-name
             (destructuring-bind ,args ,g
               (declare (ignorable ,@r-args))
               (apply (getf obj ,key-name) ,g)))))))

Future speculation

Generic function and multiple function signatures can be derived from the above code. Looking at the above code we see that the destructuring-bind is embedded within the defun block. Right now we overwrite any previously defun-ed function.

• store ‘args into a list, then using name as key store the list into a hash (args-template table). The ‘args will be considered an instance of a template.
• wrap an error-handler around destructuring-bind and then iterate through the templates to see if a match. If not add to templates table.

Happy Snow Days!