Syntax highlighter

2016-11-29

Syntax parameter 2

Couple of months ago, I've written about syntax parameter. Now, I noticed that this implementation isn't really useful in certain (probably most of the) cases. For example, consider like this situation: You want to parameterise user inputs and your macro need to cooperate with auxiliary macros something like this:
;; default input is '()
(define-syntax-parameter *input* (syntax-rules () ((_) '())))
(define-syntax aux
  (syntax-rules ()
    ((_ body ...)
     (let ((user-input (*input*)))
       ;; do what you need to do
       body ...))))
(define-syntax foo
  (syntax-rules (*input*)
    ((_ (*input* alist) body ...)
     (syntax-parameterize ((*input* (syntax-rules () ((_) 'alist))))
       (foo body ...)))
    ((_ body ...) (aux body ...))))

(foo (*input* ((a b) (c d))) 'ok)
;; *input* is '()
I would expect that in this case *input* should return ((a b) (c d)). And, indeed, Racket returns ((a b) (c d)) as I expected.

The problem is simple. My implementation of syntax-parameterize is expanded to letrec-syntax with bound keyword. However since the above case crosses macro boundaries, *input* always refers to globally bound identifier. Now, my question is; can it be implemented portable way? If I read "Keeping it Clean with Syntax Parameters", then it says it's implemented in a Racket specific way. (If I read it properly, then syntax parameter is really a parameter object which can work on macro.)

Hmmm, I need to think how I can implement it.

No comments:

Post a Comment