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Function Listing For serapeum (40 files, 406 functions)

Macro Tools

(string-gensym x)

Equivalent to (gensym (string x)).

Generally preferable to calling GENSYM with a string, because it respects the current read table.

The alternative to writing `(mapcar (compose #'gensym #'string) ...)' in every other macro.

View source

(unique-name x)

Alias for string-gensym.

View source

(unsplice form)

If FORM is non-nil, wrap it in a list.

This is useful with ,@ in macros, and with mapcan.

E.g., instead of writing:

`(.... ,@(when flag '((code))))

You can write:

`(.... ,@(unsplice (when flag '(code))))

It may be especially helpful when splicing in variables. Instead of writing:

`(.... ,@(and docstring `(,docstring)))

You can simply write:

`(.... ,@(unsplice docstring))

From Lparallel.

View source

(with-thunk (var &rest args) &body body)

A macro-writing macro for the call-with- style.

In the call-with- style of writing macros, the macro is simply a syntactic convenience that wraps its body in a thunk and a call to the function that does the actual work.

(defmacro with-foo (&body body)
  `(call-with-foo (lambda () ,@body)))

The call-with- style has many advantages. Functions are easier to write than macros; you can change the behavior of a function without having to recompile all its callers; functions can be traced, appear in backtraces, etc.

But meanwhile, all those thunks are being allocated on the heap. Can we avoid this? Yes, but at a high cost in boilerplate: the closure has to be given a name (using flet) so it can be declared dynamic-extent.

(defmacro with-foo (&body body)
  (with-gensyms (thunk)
    `(flet ((,thunk () ,@body))
       (declare (dynamic-extent #',thunk))
       (call-with-foo #',thunk))))

with-thunk avoids the boilerplate:

(defmacro with-foo (&body body)
  (with-thunk (body)
    `(call-with-foo ,body)))

It is also possible to construct a "thunk" with arguments.

(with-thunk (body foo)
  `(call-with-foo ,body))
≡ `(flet ((,thunk (,foo)
      ,@body))
    (declare (dynamic-extent #',thunk))
    (call-with-foo #',thunk))

Someday this may have a better name.

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(expand-macro form &optional env)

Like macroexpand-1, but also expand compiler macros. From Swank.

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(expand-macro-recursively form &optional env)

Like macroexpand, but also expand compiler macros. From Swank.

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(partition-declarations xs declarations &optional env)

Split DECLARATIONS into those that do and do not apply to XS. Return two values, one with each set.

Both sets of declarations are returned in a form that can be spliced directly into Lisp code:

 (locally ,@(partition-declarations vars decls) ...)

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(callf function place &rest args)

Set PLACE to the value of calling FUNCTION on PLACE, with ARGS.

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(callf2 function arg1 place &rest args)

Like CALLF, but with the place as the second argument.

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(define-do-macro name binds &body body)

Define an iteration macro like dolist.

Writing a macro like dolist is more complicated than it looks. For consistency with the rest of CL, you have to do all of the following:

  • The entire loop must be surrounded with an implicit nil block.
  • The body of the loop must be an implicit tagbody.
  • There must be an optional return form which, if given, supplies the values to return from the loop.
  • While this return form is being evaluated, the iteration variables must be bound to nil.

Say you wanted to define a do-hash macro that iterates over hash tables. A full implementation would look like this:

 (defmacro do-hash ((key value hash-table &optional return) &body body)
   (multiple-value-bind (body decls) (parse-body body)
     `(block nil
        (maphash (lambda (,key ,value)
                   ,@decls
                   (tagbody
                      ,@body))
                 ,hash-table)
        ,(when return
           `(let (,key ,value)
              ,return)))))

Using define-do-macro takes care of all of this for you.

 (define-do-macro do-hash ((key value hash-table &optional return) &body body)
   `(maphash (lambda (,key ,value)
               ,@body)
             ,hash-table))

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(define-post-modify-macro name lambda-list function &optional documentation)

Like define-modify-macro, but arranges to return the original value.

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(parse-leading-keywords body)

Given BODY, return two values: a list of the leading inline keyword arguments, and the rest of the body.

Inline keywords are like the keyword arguments to individual cases in restart-case.

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(with-read-only-vars (&rest vars) &body body)

Make VARS read-only within BODY.

That is, within BODY, each var in VARS is bound as a symbol macro, which expands into a macro whose setf expander, in turn, is defined to signal a warning at compile time, and an error at run time.

Depending on your Lisp implementation this may or may not do anything, and may or may not have an effect when used on special variables.

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(define-case-macro name macro-args params &body macro-body)

Define a macro like case.

A case-like macro is one that supports the following syntax:

  • A list of keys is treated as matching any key in the list.
  • An empty list matches nothing.
  • The atoms T or otherwise introduce a default clause.
  • There can only be one default clause.
  • The default clause must come last.
  • Any atom besides the empty list, T, or otherwise matches itself.

As a consequence of the above, to match against the empty list, T, or otherwise, they must be wrapped in a list.

(case x
  ((nil) "Matched nil.")
  ((t) "Matched t.")
  ((otherwise) "Matched `otherwise`.")
  (otherwise "Didn't match anything."))

A macro defined using define-case-macro can ignore all of the above. It receives three arguments: the expression, already protected against multiple evaluation; a normalized list of clauses; and, optionally, a default clause.

The clauses are normalized as a list of (key . body)', where each key is an atom. (That includes nil, T, and otherwise`.) Nonetheless, each body passed to the macro will only appear once in the expansion; there will be no duplicated code.

The body of the default clause is passed separately, bound to the value of the :default keyword in PARAMS.

(define-case-macro my-case (expr &body clauses)
    (:default default)
  ....)

Note that in this case, default will be bound to the clause's body -- a list of forms -- and not to the whole clause. The key of the default clause is discarded.

If no binding is specified for the default clause, then no default clause is allowed.

One thing you do still have to consider is the handling of duplicated keys. The macro defined by define-case-macro will reject case sets that contains duplicate keys under eql, but depending on the semantics of your macro, you may need to check for duplicates under a looser definition of equality.

As a final example, if the case macro did not already exist, you could define it almost trivially using define-case-macro:

(define-case-macro my-case (expr &body clause)
    (:default default)
  `(cond
     ,@(loop for (key . body) in clauses
             collect `((eql ,expr ,key) ,@body))
     (t ,@body)))

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(case-failure expr keys)

Signal an error of type case-failure.

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(eval-if-constant form &optional env)

Try to reduce FORM to a constant, using ENV. If FORM cannot be reduced, return it unaltered.

Also return a second value, T if the form could be reduced to a constant, or nil otherwise. (Note that the second value may be T if FORM was already a constant; think of it as a "green light" to treat the value as a constant.)

This is equivalent to testing if FORM is constant, then evaluating it, except that FORM is macro-expanded in ENV (taking compiler macros into account) before doing the test.

Note that this function may treat a form as constant which would not be recognized as such by constantp, because we also expand compiler macros.

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(sane-body-for-splice exp)

Sanity-check EXP, a macro expansion, assuming it is supposed to be a series of forms suitable for splicing into a progn (implicit or explicit.)

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(sane-form-for-eval exp)

Sanity-check EXP, a macro expansion, assuming it is supposed to be a single form suitable for inserting intact.

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(unparse-ordinary-lambda-list &optional required optional rest keywords aok? aux key?)

Put together an ordinary lambda list from its constituent parts.

This is the inverse of alexandria:parse-ordinary-lambda-list.

lambda-list
≡ (multiple-value-call #'unparse-ordinary-lambda-list
    (parse-ordinary-lambda-list lambda-list)

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Types

(-> function args values)

Declaim the ftype of FUNCTION from ARGS to VALUES.

 (-> mod-fixnum+ (fixnum fixnum) fixnum)
 (defun mod-fixnum+ (x y) ...)

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(assure type-spec &body (form))

Macro for inline type checking.

assure is to the as check-type is to declare.

 (the string 1)    => undefined
 (assure string 1) => error

The value returned from the assure form is guaranteed to satisfy TYPE-SPEC. If FORM does not return a value of that type, then a correctable error is signaled. You can supply a value of the correct type with the use-value restart.

Note that the supplied value is not saved into the place designated by FORM. (But see assuref.)

From ISLISP.

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(assuref place type-spec)

Like (progn (check-type PLACE TYPE-SPEC) PLACE), but evaluates PLACE only once.

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(supertypep supertype type &optional env)

Is SUPERTYPE a supertype of TYPE? That is, is TYPE a subtype of SUPERTYPE?

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(proper-subtype-p subtype type &optional env)

Is SUBTYPE a proper subtype of TYPE?

This is, is it true that SUBTYPE is a subtype of TYPE, but not the same type?

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(proper-supertype-p supertype type &optional env)

Is SUPERTYPE a proper supertype of TYPE?

That is, is it true that every value of TYPE is also of type SUPERTYPE, but not every value of SUPERTYPE is of type TYPE?

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(vref vec index)

When used globally, same as aref.

Inside of a with-type-dispatch form, calls to vref may be bound to different accessors, such as char or schar, or bit or sbit, depending on the type being specialized on.

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(with-type-dispatch (&rest types) var &body body)

A macro for writing fast sequence functions (among other things).

In the simplest case, this macro produces one copy of BODY for each type in TYPES, with the appropriate declarations to induce your Lisp to optimize that version of BODY for the appropriate type.

Say VAR is a string. With this macro, you can trivially emit optimized code for the different kinds of string that VAR might be. And then (ideally) instead of getting code that dispatches on the type of VAR every time you call aref, you get code that dispatches on the type of VAR once, and then uses the appropriately specialized accessors. (But see with-string-dispatch.)

But that's the simplest case. Using with-type-dispatch also provides transparent portability. It examines TYPES to deduplicate types that are not distinct on the current Lisp, or that are shadowed by other provided types. And the expansion strategy may differ from Lisp to Lisp: ideally, you should not have to pay for good performance on Lisps with type inference with pointless code bloat on other Lisps.

There is an additional benefit for vector types. Around each version of BODY, the definition of vref is shadowed to expand into an appropriate accessor. E.g., within a version of BODY where VAR is known to be a simple-string, vref expands into schar.

Using vref instead of aref is obviously useful on Lisps that do not do type inference, but even on Lisps with type inference it can speed compilation times (compiling aref is relatively slow on SBCL).

Within with-type-dispatch, VAR should be regarded as read-only.

Note that with-type-dispatch is intended to be used around relatively expensive code, particularly loops. For simpler code, the gains from specialized compilation may not justify the overhead of the initial dispatch and the increased code size.

Note also that with-type-dispatch is relatively low level. You may want to use one of the other macros in the same family, such as with-subtype-dispatch, with-string-dispatch, or so forth.

The design and implementation of with-type-dispatch is based on a few sources. It replaces a similar macro formerly included in Serapeum, with-templated-body. One possible expansion is based on the string-dispatch macro used internally in SBCL. But most of the credit should go to the paper "Fast, Maintable, and Portable Sequence Functions", by Irène Durand and Robert Strandh.

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(with-subtype-dispatch type (&rest subtypes) var &body body)

Like with-type-dispatch, but SUBTYPES must be subtypes of TYPE.

Furthermore, if SUBTYPES are not exhaustive, an extra clause will be added to ensure that TYPE itself is handled.

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(with-string-dispatch (&rest types) var &body body)

Like with-subtype-dispatch with an overall type of string.

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(with-vector-dispatch (&rest types) var &body body)

Like with-subtype-dispatch with an overall type of vector.

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(with-boolean (var) &body body)

Emit BODY twice: once for the case where VAR is true, once for the case where VAR is false.

This lets you write an algorithm naturally, testing the value of VAR as much as you like -- perhaps even in each iteration of a loop -- knowing that VAR will only actually be tested once.

Around each specialized body VAR is bound to a symbol macro whose value is t or nil. This ensures VAR cannot be rebound, and allows macros to recognize VAR as a constant.

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(with-item-key-function (key &optional (key-form key)) &body body)

For each of the most common key functions used in sequences, emit a copy of BODY with KEY bound to a local macro that calls KEY-FORM.

If current optimization declarations favor space over speed, or compilation speed over runtime speed, then BODY is only emitted once.

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(true x)

Coerce X to a boolean. That is, if X is null, return nil; otherwise return t.

Based on an idea by Eric Naggum.

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Definitions

(def var &body (&optional val documentation))

The famous "deflex".

Define a top level (global) lexical VAR with initial value VAL, which is assigned unconditionally as with DEFPARAMETER. If a DOC string is provided, it is attached to both the name |VAR| and the name STORAGE-FOR-DEFLEX-VAR-|VAR| as a documentation string of kind 'VARIABLE. The new VAR will have lexical scope and thus may be shadowed by LET bindings without affecting its dynamic (global) value.

The original deflex is due to Rob Warnock.

This version of deflex differs from the original in the following ways:

  • It is possible for VAL to close over VAR.
  • On implementations that support it (SBCL, CCL, and LispWorks, at the moment) this version creates a backing variable that is "global" or "static", so there is not just a change in semantics, but also a gain in efficiency.
  • If VAR is a list that starts with values, each element is treated as a separate variable and initialized as if by (setf (values VAR...) VAL).

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(define-values values &body (expr))

Like def, but for multiple values. Each variable in VALUES is given a global, lexical binding, as with def, then set all at once, as with multiple-value-setq.

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(defconst symbol init &optional docstring)

Define a constant, lexically.

defconst defines a constant using a strategy similar to def, so you don’t have to +cage+ your constants.

The constant is only redefined on re-evaluation if INIT has a different literal representation than the old value.

The name is from Emacs Lisp.

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(defsubst name params &body body)

Define an inline function.

 (defsubst fn ...)
 ≡ (declaim (inline fn))
   (defun fn ...)

The advantage of a separate defining form for inline functions is that you can't forget to declaim the function inline before defining it – without which it may not actually end up being inlined.

From Emacs and other ancient Lisps.

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(defalias alias &body (def &optional docstring))

Define a value as a top-level function.

 (defalias string-gensym (compose #'gensym #'string))

Like (setf (fdefinition ALIAS) DEF), but with a place to put documentation and some niceties to placate the compiler.

Note that a function defined with defalias is declared notinline. This is a matter of semantics: before we can assign to the function, we must make it assignable (which is what notinline means).

Name from Emacs Lisp.

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(defplace name args &body (form &optional docstring))

Define NAME and (SETF NAME) in one go.

Note that the body must be a single, setf-able expression.

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(defvar-unbound var &body (docstring))

Define VAR as if by defvar with no init form, and set DOCSTRING as its documentation.

I believe the name comes from Edi Weitz.

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(defloop name args &body body)

Define a function, ensuring proper tail recursion. This is entirely equivalent to defun over nlet.

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Defining Types

(defcondition name supers &body (slots &rest options))

Alias for define-condition.

Like (define-condition ...), but blissfully conforming to the same nomenclatural convention as every other definition form in Common Lisp.

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(defstruct-read-only name-and-opts &body slots)

Easily define a defstruct with no mutable slots.

The syntax of defstruct-read-only is as close as possible to that of defstruct. Given an existing structure definition, you can usually make it immutable simply by switching out defstruct for defstruct-read-only.

There are only a few syntactic differences:

  1. To prevent accidentally inheriting mutable slots, and preserve its own usefulness as a marker of the programmer's intent, defstruct-read-only only allows inheritance from other classes defined using defstruct-read-only.

  2. The :type option may not be used.

  3. The :copier option is disabled, because it would be useless.

  4. Slot definitions can use slot options without having to provide an initform. In this case, any attempt to make an instance of the struct without providing a value for that slot will signal an error.

    (my-slot :type string) ≡ (my-slot (required-argument 'my-slot) :read-only t :type string)

The idea here is simply that an unbound slot in an immutable data structure does not make sense.

A read-only struct is always externalizable; it has an implicit definition for make-load-form.

On Lisps that support it, the structure is also marked as "pure": that is, instances may be moved into read-only memory.

defstruct-read-only is designed to stay as close to the syntax of defstruct as possible. The idea is to make it easy to flag data as immutable, whether in your own code or in code you are refactoring. In new code, however, you may sometimes prefer defconstructor, which is designed to facilitate working with immutable data.

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(read-eval-prefix object stream)

A helper for making objects readable.

The obvious way to give an object a readable representation is to use the sharp-dot reader macro. However, methods are supposed to consult the values of *print-readably* and *read-eval* before doing so. This function takes care of that for you.

If *print-readably* is false, return an empty string.

If *print-readably* is true, and *read-eval* is also true, return the string "#.".

If *print-readably* is true, but *read-eval* is not true, signal an error.

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(deconstruct x)

If X is a type defined with defconstructor, return its slots as multiple values.

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(defconstructor type-name &body slots)

A variant of defstruct for modeling immutable data.

The structure defined by defconstructor has only one constructor, which takes its arguments as required arguments (a BOA constructor). Thus, defconstructor is only appropriate for data structures that require no initialization.

The printed representation of an instance resembles its constructor:

(person "Common Lisp" 33)
=> (PERSON "Common Lisp" 33)

While the constructor is BOA, the copier takes keyword arguments, allowing you to override the values of a selection of the slots of the structure being copied, while retaining the values of the others.

(defconstructor person
  (name string)
  (age (integer 0 1000)))

(defun birthday (person)
  (copy-person person :age (1+ (person-age person))))

(birthday (person "Common Lisp" 33))
=> (PERSON "Common Lisp" 34)

Obviously the copier becomes more useful the more slots the type has.

When *print-readably* is true, the printed representation is readable:

(person "Common Lisp" 33)
=> #.(PERSON "Common Lisp" 33)

(Why override how a structure is normally printed? Structure types are not necessarily readable unless they have a default (make-X) constructor. Since the type defined by defconstructor has only one constructor, we have to take over to make sure it re-readable.)

Besides being re-readable, the type is also externalizable, with a method for make-load-form:

(make-load-form (person "Common Lisp" 33))
=> (PERSON "Common Lisp" 33)

Users of Trivia get an extra benefit: defining a type with defconstructor also defines a symmetrical pattern for destructuring that type.

(trivia:match (person "Common Lisp" 33)
  ((person name age)
   (list name age)))
=> ("Common Lisp" 33)

Note that the arguments to the pattern are optional:

(trivia:match (person "Common Lisp" 33)
  ((person name) name))
=> "Common Lisp"

If you don't use Trivia, you can still do destructuring with deconstruct, which returns the slots of a constructor as multiple values:

(deconstruct (person "Common Lisp" 33))
=> "Common Lisp", 33

Note also that no predicate is defined for the type, so to test for the type you must either use typep or pattern matching as above.

While it is possible to inherit from a type defined with defconstructor (this is Lisp, I can't stop you), it's a bad idea. In particular, on Lisps which support it, a type defined with defconstructor is declared to be frozen (sealed), so your new subtype may not be recognized in type tests that have already been compiled.

Because defconstructor is implemented on top of defstruct-read-only, it shares the limitations of defstruct-read-only. In particular it cannot use inheritance.

The design of defconstructor is mostly inspired by Scala's case classes, with some implementation tricks from cl-algebraic-data-type.

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(defunit name &optional docstring)

Define a unit type.

A unit type is a type with only one instance.

You can think of a unit type as a singleton without state.

Unit types are useful for many of the same purposes as quoted symbols (or keywords) but, unlike a symbol, a unit type is tagged with its own individual type.

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(defunion union &body variants)

Define an algebraic data type.

Each expression in VARIANTS is either a symbol (in which case it defines a unit type, as with defunit) or a list (in which case it defines a read-only structure, as with defconstructor).

UNION is defined as a type equivalent to the disjunction of all the member types. A class is also defined, with the same name, but with angle brackets around it.

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(match-of union expr &body clauses)

Do pattern matching on an algebraic data type.

UNION should be an algebraic data type.

Each clause in CLAUSES has a pattern as its first element.

If the pattern is a symbol, it matches a unit type.

If the pattern is a list, it matches a constructor.

If the pattern is an underscore, it introduces a default or fallthrough clause.

If the pattern is a list that starts with or, it is a disjunction of other patterns.

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Binding

(lret (&rest bindings) &body body)

Return the initial value of the last binding in BINDINGS. The idea is to create something, initialize it, and then return it.

(lret ((x 1)
       (y (make-array 1)))
  (setf (aref y 0) x))
=> #(1)

Note that the value returned is the value initially bound. Subsequent assignments are ignored.

(lret ((x 1))
  (setf x 2))
=> 1

Furthermore, on Lisps that support it, the variable may be made read-only, making assignment a compiler-time error.

lret may seem trivial, but it fufills the highest purpose a macro can: it eliminates a whole class of bugs (initializing an object, but forgetting to return it).

Cf. aprog1 in Anaphora.

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(lret* (&rest bindings) &body body)

Cf. lret.

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(letrec (&rest bindings) &body body)

Recursive LET. The idea is that functions created in BINDINGS can close over one another, and themselves.

Note that letrec only binds variables: it can define recursive functions, but can't bind them as functions. (But see fbindrec.)

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(letrec* (&rest bindings) &body body)

Like LETREC, but the bindings are evaluated in order. See Waddell et al., Fixing Letrec for motivation.

Cf. fbindrec*.

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(receive formals expr &body body)

Stricter version of multiple-value-bind.

Use receive when you want to enforce that EXPR should return a certain number of values, or a minimum number of values.

If FORMALS is a proper list, then EXPR must return exactly as many values -- no more and no less -- as there are variables in FORMALS.

If FORMALS is an improper list (VARS . REST), then EXPR must return at least as many values as there are VARS, and any further values are bound, as a list, to REST.

Lastly, if FORMALS is a symbol, bind that symbol to all the values returned by EXPR, as if by multiple-value-list.

From Scheme (SRFI-8).

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(mvlet* (&rest bindings) &body body)

Expand a series of nested multiple-value-bind forms.

mvlet* is similar in intent to Scheme’s let-values, but with a different and less parenthesis-intensive syntax. Each binding is a list of

(var var*... expr)

A simple example should suffice to show both the implementation and the motivation:

(defun uptime (seconds)
  (mvlet* ((minutes seconds (truncate seconds 60))
           (hours minutes (truncate minutes 60))
           (days hours (truncate hours 24)))
    (declare ((integer 0 *) days hours minutes seconds))
    (fmt "~d day~:p, ~d hour~:p, ~d minute~:p, ~d second~:p"
         days hours minutes seconds)))

Note that declarations work just like let*.

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(mvlet (&rest bindings) &body body)

Parallel (let-like) version of mvlet*.

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(and-let* (&rest clauses) &body body)

Scheme's guarded LET* (SRFI-2).

Each clause should have one of the following forms:

  • identifier, in which case IDENTIFIER's value is tested.

  • (expression), in which case the value of EXPRESSION is tested.

  • `(identifier expression)' in which case EXPRESSION is evaluated, and, if its value is not false, IDENTIFIER is bound to that value for the remainder of the clauses and the optional body.

Note that, of course, the semantics are slightly different in Common Lisp than in Scheme, because our AND short-circuits on null, not false.

Also, this version makes the bindings immutable.

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Control Flow

(eval-always &body body)

Shorthand for (eval-when (:compile-toplevel :load-toplevel :execute) ...)

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(eval-and-compile &body body)

Emacs's eval-and-compile. Alias for eval-always.

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(no x)

Another alias for not and null.

From Arc.

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(nor &rest forms)

Equivalent to (not (or ...)).

From Arc.

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(nand &rest forms)

Equivalent to (not (and ...)).

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(typecase-of type x &body clauses)

Like etypecase-of, but may, and must, have an otherwise clause in case X is not of TYPE.

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(etypecase-of type x &body body)

Like etypecase but, at compile time, warn unless each clause in BODY is a subtype of TYPE, and the clauses in BODY form an exhaustive partition of TYPE.

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(case-of type x &body clauses)

Like case but may, and must, have an otherwise clause.

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(ecase-of type x &body body)

Like ecase but, given a TYPE (which should be defined as (member ...)), warn, at compile time, unless the keys in BODY are all of TYPE and, taken together, they form an exhaustive partition of TYPE.

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(ctypecase-of type keyplace &body body)

Like etypecase-of, but providing a store-value restart to correct KEYPLACE and try again.

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(ccase-of type keyplace &body body)

Like ecase-of, but providing a store-value restart to correct KEYPLACE and try again.

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(destructuring-ecase-of type expr &body body)

Like destructuring-ecase, from Alexandria, but with exhaustivness checking.

TYPE is a designator for a type, which should be defined as (member ...). At compile time, the macro checks that, taken together, the symbol at the head of each of the destructuring lists in BODY form an exhaustive partition of TYPE, and warns if it is not so.

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(destructuring-case-of type expr &body body)

Like destructuring-ecase-of, but an otherwise clause must also be supplied.

Note that the otherwise clauses must also be a list:

((otherwise &rest args) ...)

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(destructuring-ccase-of type keyplace &body body)

Like destructuring-case-of, but providing a store-value restart to collect KEYPLACE and try again.

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(case-using pred keyform &body clauses)

ISLISP's case-using.

 (case-using #'eql x ...)
 ≡ (case x ...).

Note that, no matter the predicate, the keys are not evaluated. (But see selector.)

This version supports both single-item clauses (x ...) and multiple-item clauses ((x y) ...), as well as (t ...) or (otherwise ...) for the default clause.

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(ecase-using pred keyform &body clauses)

Exhaustive variant of case-using.

View source

(string-case stringform &body clauses)

Efficient case-like macro with string keys.

Note that string matching is always case-sensitive.

This uses Paul Khuong's string-case macro internally.

View source

(string-ecase stringform &body clauses)

Efficient ecase-like macro with string keys.

Note that string matching is always case-sensitive.

Cf. string-case.

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(eif test then &optional (else nil else?))

Like cl:if, but expects two branches.

If there is only one branch a warning is signaled.

This macro is useful when writing explicit decision trees; it will warn you if you forget a branch.

Short for “exhaustive if”.

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(eif-let binds &body (then &optional (else nil else?)))

Like alexandria:if-let, but expects two branches. Compare eif.

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(econd &rest clauses)

Like cond, but signal an error of type econd-failure if no clause succeeds.

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(cond-let var &body clauses)

Cross between COND and LET.

 (cond-let x ((test ...)))
 ≡ (let (x)
     (cond ((setf x test) ...)))

Cf. acond in Anaphora.

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(econd-let symbol &body clauses)

Like cond-let for econd.

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(cond-every &body clauses)

Like cond, but instead of stopping after the first clause that succeeds, run all the clauses that succeed.

Return the value of the last successful clause.

If a clause begins with cl:otherwise, it runs only if no preceding form has succeeded.

Note that this does not do the same thing as a series of when forms: cond-every evaluates all the tests before it evaluates any of the forms.

From Zetalisp.

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(bcond &body clauses)

Scheme's extended COND.

This is exactly like COND, except for clauses having the form

 (test :=> recipient)

In that case, if TEST evaluates to a non-nil result, then RECIPIENT, a function, is called with that result, and the result of RECIPIENT is return as the value of the cond.

As an extension, a clause like this:

 (test :=> var ...)

Can be used as a shorthand for

 (test :=> (lambda (var) ...))

The name bcond for a “binding cond” goes back at least to the days of the Lisp Machines. I do not know who was first to use it, but the oldest examples I have found are by Michael Parker and Scott L. Burson.

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(case-let (var expr) &body cases)

Like (let ((VAR EXPR)) (case VAR ...)), with VAR read-only.

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(ecase-let (var expr) &body cases)

Like (let ((VAR EXPR)) (ecase VAR ...)), with VAR read-only.

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(comment &body body)

A macro that ignores its body and does nothing. Useful for comments-by-example.

Also, as noted in EXTENSIONS.LISP of 1992, "This may seem like a silly macro, but used inside of other macros or code generation facilities it is very useful - you can see comments in the (one-time) macro expansion!"

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(example &body body)

Like comment.

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(nix &rest places)

Set PLACES to nil and return the old value(s) of PLACES.

If there is more than one PLACE, return their old values as multiple values.

This may be more efficient than (shiftf place nil), because it only sets PLACE when it is not already null.

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(ensure place &body newval)

Essentially (or place (setf place newval)).

PLACE is treated as unbound if it returns nil, signals unbound-slot, or signals unbound-variable.

Note that ENSURE is setf-able, so you can do things like (incf (ensure x 0))

Cf. ensure2.

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(ensure2 place &body newval)

Like ensure, but specifically for accessors that return a second value like gethash.

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(~> needle &rest holes)

Threading macro from Clojure (by way of Racket).

Thread NEEDLE through HOLES, where each hole is either a symbol (equivalent to (hole needle)) or a list (equivalent to (hole needle args...)).

As an extension, an underscore in the argument list is replaced with the needle, so you can pass the needle as an argument other than the first.

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(~>> needle &rest holes)

Like ~> but, by default, thread NEEDLE as the last argument instead of the first.

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(nest &rest things)

Like ~>>, but backward.

This is useful when layering with-x macros where the order is not important, and extra indentation would be misleading.

For example:

(nest
 (with-open-file (in file1 :direction input))
 (with-open-file (in file2 :direction output))
 ...)

Is equivalent to:

(with-open-file (in file1 :direction input)
  (with-open-file (in file2 :direction output)
    ...))

(But see with-open-files).

If the outer macro has no arguments, you may omit the parentheses.

(nest
  with-standard-io-syntax
  ...)
≡ (with-standard-io-syntax
    ...)

From UIOP, based on a suggestion by Marco Baringer.

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(select keyform &body clauses)

Like case, but with evaluated keys.

Note that, like case, select interprets a list as the first element of a clause as a list of keys. To use a form as a key, you must add an extra set of parentheses.

 (select 2
   ((+ 2 2) t))
 => T

 (select 4
   (((+ 2 2)) t))
 => T

From Zetalisp.

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(selector keyform fn &body clauses)

Like select, but compare using FN.

Note that (unlike case-using), FN is not evaluated.

From Zetalisp.

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(sort-values pred &rest values)

Sort VALUES with PRED and return as multiple values.

Equivalent to

(values-list (sort (list VALUES...) pred))

But with less consing, and potentially faster.

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(eq* &rest xs)

Variadic version of EQ.

With no arguments, return T.

With one argument, return T.

With two arguments, same as EQ.

With three or more arguments, return T only if all of XS are equivalent under EQ.

Has a compiler macro, so there is no loss of efficiency relative to writing out the tests by hand.

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(eql* &rest xs)

Variadic version of EQL.

With no arguments, return T.

With one argument, return T.

With two arguments, same as EQL.

With three or more arguments, return T only if all of XS are equivalent under EQL.

Has a compiler macro, so there is no loss of efficiency relative to writing out the tests by hand.

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(equal* &rest xs)

Variadic version of EQUAL.

With no arguments, return T.

With one argument, return T.

With two arguments, same as EQUAL.

With three or more arguments, return T only if all of XS are equivalent under EQUAL.

Has a compiler macro, so there is no loss of efficiency relative to writing out the tests by hand.

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(equalp* &rest xs)

Variadic version of EQUALP.

With no arguments, return T.

With one argument, return T.

With two arguments, same as EQUALP.

With three or more arguments, return T only if all of XS are equivalent under EQUALP.

Has a compiler macro, so there is no loss of efficiency relative to writing out the tests by hand.

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(without-recursion (&key) &body body)

If BODY calls itself, at any depth, signal a (continuable) error of type recursion-forbidden.

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Threads

(count-cpus &key default)

Try very hard to return a meaningful count of CPUs.

The second value is T if the number of processors could be queried, nil otherwise.

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(synchronized (&optional (object nil objectp)) &body body)

Run BODY holding a unique lock associated with OBJECT. If no OBJECT is provided, run BODY as an anonymous critical section.

If BODY begins with a literal string, attach the string to the lock object created (as the argument to bt:make-recursive-lock).

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(monitor object)

Return a unique lock associated with OBJECT.

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Iter

(nlet name (&rest bindings) &body body)

Within BODY, bind NAME as a function, somewhat like LABELS, but with the guarantee that recursive calls to NAME will not grow the stack.

nlet resembles Scheme’s named let, and is used for the same purpose: writing loops using tail recursion. You could of course do this with labels as well, at least under some Lisp implementations, but nlet guarantees tail call elimination anywhere and everywhere.

(nlet rec ((i 1000000))
  (if (= i 0)
      0
      (rec (1- i))))
=> 0

Beware: because of the way it is written (literally, a GOTO with arguments), nlet is limited: self calls must be tail calls. That is, you cannot use nlet for true recursion.

The name comes from `Let Over Lambda', but this is a more careful implementation: the function is not bound while the initial arguments are being evaluated, and it is safe to close over the arguments.

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(with-collector (collector) &body body)

Within BODY, bind COLLECTOR to a function of one argument that accumulates all the arguments it has been called with in order, like the collect clause in loop, finally returning the collection.

To see the collection so far, call COLLECTOR with no arguments.

Note that this version binds COLLECTOR to a closure, not a macro: you can pass the collector around or return it like any other function.

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(collecting &body body)

Like with-collector, with the collector bound to the result of interning collect in the current package.

View source

(with-collectors (&rest collectors) &body body)

Like with-collector, with multiple collectors. Returns the final value of each collector as multiple values.

 (with-collectors (x y z)
   (x 1)
   (y 2)
   (z 3))
 => '(1) '(2) '(3)

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(summing &body body)

Within BODY, bind sum to a function that gathers numbers to sum.

If the first form in BODY is a literal number, it is used instead of 0 as the initial sum.

To see the running sum, call sum with no arguments.

Return the total.

View source

Conditions

(ignoring type &body body)

An improved version of ignore-errors.

The behavior is the same: if an error occurs in the body, the form returns two values, nil and the condition itself.

ignoring forces you to specify the kind of error you want to ignore:

(ignoring parse-error
  ...)

I call it an improvement because I think ignore-errors is too broad: by hiding all errors it becomes itself a source of bugs.

Of course you can still ignore all errors, at the cost of one extra character:

(ignoring error
  ...)

NB (ignoring t) is a bad idea.

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(maybe-invoke-restart restart &rest values)

When RESTART is active, invoke it with VALUES.

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Op

This differs from the original in expecting an extra layer of parentheses. I find it easier to put the extra parentheses in than to remember to leave them out. Doing it this way also lets completion work.

Of course, the extra parentheses make it longer, but the point of positional lambdas isn't to save typing: it's to save the mental effort of giving things names when all we are interested in is the shape of the code.

(op &body body)

GOO's simple macro for positional lambdas.

An OP is like a lambda without an argument list. Within the body of the OP form, an underscore introduces a new argument.

 (reduce (op (set-intersection _ _ :test #'equal))
         sets)

You can refer back to each argument by number, starting with _1.

 (funcall (op (+ _ _1)) 2) => 4

You can also use positional arguments directly:

 (reduce (op (funcall _2 _1)) ...)

Argument lists can be sparse:

 (apply (op (+ _1 _3 _5)) '(1 2 3 4 5)) => 9

Note that OP with a single argument is equivalent to CONSTANTLY:

 (funcall (op 1)) => 1

and that OP with a single placeholder is equivalent to IDENTITY:

 (funcall (op _) 1) => 1

OP can also be used to define variadic functions by using _* as the placeholder. It is not necessary to use APPLY.

 (apply (op (+ _*)) '(1 2 3 4)) => 10

OP is intended for simple functions -- one-liners. Parameters are extracted according to a depth-first walk of BODY. Macro expansion may, or may not, be done depending on the implementation; it should not be relied on. Lexical bindings may, or may not, shadow placeholders -- again, it depends on the implementation. (This means, among other things, that nested use of op is not a good idea.) Because of the impossibility of a truly portable code walker, op will never be a true replacement for lambda. But even if it were possible to do better, op would still only be suited for one-liners. If you need more than a one-liner, then you should be giving your arguments names.

{One thing you can count on the ability to use op with quasiquotes. If using placeholders inside quasiquotes does not work on your Lisp implementation, that's a bug, not a limitation.)

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(opf place expr)

Like `(callf PLACE (op EXPR))'. From GOO.

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Functions

(eqs x)

Return a one-argument function that tests if its argument is eq to X.

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(eqls x)

Return a one-argument function that tests if its argument is eql to X.

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(equals x)

Return a one-argument function that tests if its argument is equal to X.

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(partial fn &rest args)

Partial application.

Unlike alexandria:curry, which is only inlined when you ask it to be, partial is always inlined if possible.

From Clojure.

View source

(trampoline fn &rest args)

Use the trampoline technique to simulate mutually recursive functions.

Call FN with supplied ARGS, if any.

If FN returns a functions, call that function with no arguments. Repeat until the return value is not a function, and finally return that non-function value.

Note that, to return a function as a final value, you must wrap it in some data structure and unpack it.

Most likely to be useful for Lisp implementations that do not provide tail call elimination.

From Clojure.

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(define-train name args &body body)

Define a higher-order function and its compiler macro at once.

When defining a higher-order function it is often a good idea to write a compiler macro so compilers can inline the resulting lambda form.

For the special case of a fixed-arity function that only takes other functions as arguments, you can use define-train to define the function and the compiler macro in one go. The catch is that you have to write the single definition as a macro.

E.g., if complement did not exist, you could define it like so:

(define-train complement (fn)
  `(lambda (&rest args)
     (not (apply ,fn args))))

Besides providing an implicit compiler macro, define-train also inserts the proper declarations to ensure the compiler recognizes the function arguments as functions, avoiding runtime type checks.

The term "train" is from J.

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(flip f)

Flip around the arguments of a binary function.

That is, given a binary function, return another, equivalent function that takes its two arguments in the opposite order.

From Haskell.

View source

(nth-arg n)

Return a function that returns only its NTH argument, ignoring all others.

If you've ever caught yourself trying to do something like

(mapcar #'second xs ys)

then nth-arg is what you need.

If hash-table-keys were not already defined by Alexandria, you could define it thus:

(defun hash-table-keys (table)
  (maphash-return (nth-arg 0) table))

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(distinct &key key test)

Return a function that echoes only values it has not seen before.

(defalias test (distinct))
(test 'foo) => foo, t
(test 'foo) => nil, nil

The second value is T when the value is distinct.

TEST must be a valid test for a hash table.

This has many uses, for example:

(count-if (distinct) seq)
≡ (length (remove-duplicates seq))

View source

(throttle fn wait &key synchronized memoized)

Wrap FN so it can be called no more than every WAIT seconds. If FN was called less than WAIT seconds ago, return the values from the last call. Otherwise, call FN normally and update the cached values.

WAIT, of course, may be a fractional number of seconds.

The throttled function is not thread-safe by default; use SYNCHRONIZED to get a version with a lock.

You can pass MEMOIZED if you want the function to remember values between calls.

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(once fn)

Return a function that runs FN only once, caching the results forever.

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(juxt &rest fns)

Clojure's juxt.

Return a function of one argument, which, in turn, returns a list where each element is the result of applying one of FNS to the argument.

It’s actually quite simple, but easier to demonstrate than to explain. The classic example is to use juxt to implement partition:

(defalias partition* (juxt #'filter #'remove-if))
(partition* #'evenp '(1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10))
=> '((2 4 6 8 10) (1 3 5 7 9))

The general idea is that juxt takes things apart.

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(dynamic-closure symbols fn)

Create a dynamic closure.

Some ancient Lisps had closures without lexical binding. Instead, you could "close over" pieces of the current dynamic environment. When the resulting closure was called, the symbols closed over would be bound to their storage at the time the closure was created. These bindings would persist through subsequent invocations and could be mutated. The result was something between a closure and a continuation.

This particular piece of Lisp history is worth reviving, I think, if only for use with threads. For example, to start a thread and propagate the current value of *standard-output*:

 (bt:make-thread (dynamic-closure '(*standard-output*) (lambda ...)))
 = (let ((temp *standard-output*))
     (bt:make-thread
      (lambda ...
        (let ((*standard-output* temp))
          ...))))

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(hook f g)

Monadic hook. From J.

The hook of f is defined as f(y,g(y)).

For example, you can use a hook to test whether a number is an integer, by asking whether it is equal to its own floor.

(hook #'= #'floor)
(funcall * 2.0)
=> T

AKA Schoenfinkel's S combinator.

View source

(fork g f h)

Monadic fork.

The monadic fork of f, g, and h is defined as

(f g h) y <-> (f y) g (h y)

The usual example of a monadic fork is defining the mean. Assuming a sum function defined as

(defun sum (xs) (reduce #'+ xs))

you can write a (numerically unstable) mean using fork.

(fork #'/ #'sum #'length)
(funcall * '(1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0))
=> 2.5

From J.

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(hook2 f g)

Dyadic hook.

The usual (only?) example of a dyadic hook is an hour function that takes an hour and a count of minutes and returns a fractional count of hours.

(hook2 #'+ (partial (flip #'/) 60))
(funcall * 3.0 15.0)
=> 3.25

From J.

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(fork2 g f h)

Dyadic fork.

The dyadic fork of f, g, and h is defined as:

x (f g h) y <-> (x f y) g (x h y)

For example, say you wanted a "plus or minus" operator. Given numbers x and y, it returns a list of x+y and x-y. This can easily be written as a dyadic fork.

(fork2 #'list #'+ #'-)
(funcall * 10 2)
=> '(12 8)

From J.

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(capped-fork g h)

J's capped fork (monadic).

Like a monadic fork, but F is omitted.

Effectively the composition of G and H.

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(capped-fork2 g h)

J's capped fork (dyadic).

Like a dyadic fork, but F is omitted.

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(fnil fn &rest defaults)

Return a function that ORs its arguments with DEFAULTS.

If the first argument is nil, then the first default in DEFAULTS is used instead; if the second argument is nil, then the second default in DEFAULTS is used instead; and so on until we run out of DEFAULTS.

The minimum arity is equal to the length of DEFAULTS.

This has a compiler macro for reasonable efficiency.

From Clojure.

View source

Trees

(reuse-cons x y x-y)

If X and Y are the car and cdr of X-Y, return X-Y.

Otherwise, return a fresh cons of X and Y.

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(walk-tree fun tree &key tag traversal)

Call FUN in turn over each atom and cons of TREE.

FUN can skip the current subtree with (throw TAG nil).

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(map-tree fun tree &key tag traversal)

Walk FUN over TREE and build a tree from the results.

The new tree may share structure with the old tree.

 (eq tree (map-tree #'identity tree)) => T

FUN can skip the current subtree with (throw TAG SUBTREE), in which case SUBTREE will be used as the value of the subtree.

TRAVERSE can be one of :preorder, :postorder, or :inorder. The default is :preorder.

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(leaf-walk fun tree)

Call FUN on each leaf of TREE.

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(leaf-map fn tree)

Call FN on each leaf of TREE. Return a new tree possibly sharing structure with TREE.

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(occurs-if test tree &key key traversal)

Is there a node (leaf or cons) in TREE that satisfies TEST?

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(prune-if test tree &key key)

Remove any atoms satisfying TEST from TREE.

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(occurs leaf tree &key key test traversal)

Is LEAF present in TREE?

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(prune leaf tree &key key test)

Remove LEAF from TREE wherever it occurs.

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Hash Tables

(do-hash-table (key value table &optional return) &body body)

Iterate over hash table TABLE, in no particular order.

At each iteration, a key from TABLE is bound to KEY, and the value of that key in TABLE is bound to VALUE.

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(dict &rest keys-and-values)

A concise constructor for hash tables.

(gethash :c (dict :a 1 :b 2 :c 3)) => 3, T

By default, return an 'equal hash table containing each successive pair of keys and values from KEYS-AND-VALUES.

If the number of KEYS-AND-VALUES is odd, then the first argument is understood as the test.

 (gethash "string" (dict "string" t)) => t
 (gethash "string" (dict 'eq "string" t)) => nil

Note that dict can also be used for destructuring (with Trivia).

(match (dict :x 1)
  ((dict :x x) x))
=> 1

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(dict* dict &rest args)

Merge new bindings into DICT. Roughly equivalent to `(merge-tables DICT (dict args...))'.

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(dictq &rest keys-and-values)

A literal hash table. Like dict, but the keys and values are implicitly quoted, and the hash table is inlined as a literal object.

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(href table &rest keys)

A concise way of doings lookups in (potentially nested) hash tables.

(href (dict :x 1) :x) => x
(href (dict :x (dict :y 2)) :x :y)  => y

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(href-default default table &rest keys)

Like href, with a default. As soon as one of KEYS fails to match, DEFAULT is returned.

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(@ table &rest keys)

A concise way of doings lookups in (potentially nested) hash tables.

(@ (dict :x 1) :x) => x
(@ (dict :x (dict :y 2)) :x :y)  => y 

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(pophash key hash-table)

Lookup KEY in HASH-TABLE, return its value, and remove it.

This is only a shorthand. It is not in itself thread-safe.

From Zetalisp.

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(swaphash key value hash-table)

Set KEY and VALUE in HASH-TABLE, returning the old values of KEY.

This is only a shorthand. It is not in itself thread-safe.

From Zetalisp.

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(hash-fold fn init hash-table)

Reduce TABLE by calling FN with three values: a key from the hash table, its value, and the return value of the last call to FN. On the first call, INIT is supplied in place of the previous value.

From Guile.

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(maphash-return fn hash-table)

Like MAPHASH, but collect and return the values from FN. From Zetalisp.

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(merge-tables &rest tables)

Merge TABLES, working from left to right. The resulting hash table has the same parameters as the first table.

If no tables are given, an new, empty hash table is returned.

If a single table is given, a copy of it is returned.

If the same key is present in two tables, the value from the rightmost table is used.

All of the tables being merged must have the same value for hash-table-test.

Clojure's merge.

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(flip-hash-table table &key test key)

Return a table like TABLE, but with keys and values flipped.

 (gethash :y (flip-hash-table (dict :x :y)))
 => :x, t

TEST allows you to filter which keys to set.

 (def number-names (dictq 1 one 2 two 3 three))

 (def name-numbers (flip-hash-table number-names))
 (def name-odd-numbers (flip-hash-table number-names :filter #'oddp))

 (gethash 'two name-numbers) => 2, t
 (gethash 'two name-odd-numbers) => nil, nil

KEY allows you to transform the keys in the old hash table.

 (def negative-number-names (flip-hash-table number-names :key #'-))
 (gethash 'one negative-number-names) => -1, nil

KEY defaults to identity.

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(set-hash-table set &rest hash-table-args &key test key strict &allow-other-keys)

Return SET, a list considered as a set, as a hash table. This is the equivalent of Alexandria's alist-hash-table and plist-hash-table for a list that denotes a set.

STRICT determines whether to check that the list actually is a set.

The resulting hash table has the elements of SET for both its keys and values. That is, each element of SET is stored as if by (setf (gethash (key element) table) element)

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(hash-table-set table &key strict test key)

Return the set denoted by TABLE. Given STRICT, check that the table actually denotes a set.

Without STRICT, equivalent to hash-table-values.

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(hash-table-predicate hash-table)

Return a predicate for membership in HASH-TABLE. The predicate returns the same two values as gethash, but in the opposite order.

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(hash-table-function hash-table &key read-only strict key-type value-type strict-types)

Return a function for accessing HASH-TABLE.

Calling the function with a single argument is equivalent to gethash against a copy of HASH-TABLE at the time HASH-TABLE-FUNCTION was called.

(def x (make-hash-table))

(funcall (hash-table-function x) y)
≡ (gethash y x)

If READ-ONLY is nil, then calling the function with two arguments is equivalent to `(setf (gethash ...))' against HASH-TABLE.

If STRICT is non-nil, then the function signals an error if it is called with a key that is not present in HASH-TABLE. This applies to setting keys, as well as looking them up.

The function is able to restrict what types are permitted as keys and values. If KEY-TYPE is specified, an error will be signaled if an attempt is made to get or set a key that does not satisfy KEY-TYPE. If VALUE-TYPE is specified, an error will be signaled if an attempt is made to set a value that does not satisfy VALUE-TYPE. However, the hash table provided is not checked to ensure that the existing pairings KEY-TYPE and VALUE-TYPE -- not unless STRICT-TYPES is also specified.

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(make-hash-table-function &rest args &key &allow-other-keys)

Call hash-table-function on a fresh hash table. ARGS can be args to hash-table-function or args to make-hash-table, as they are disjoint.

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(delete-from-hash-table table &rest keys)

Return TABLE with KEYS removed (as with remhash). Cf. delete-from-plist in Alexandria.

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(pairhash keys data &optional hash-table)

Like pairlis, but for a hash table.

Unlike pairlis, KEYS and DATA are only required to be sequences, not lists.

By default, the hash table returned uses eql as its tests. If you want a different test, make the table yourself and pass it as the HASH-TABLE argument.

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Files

(with-open-files (&rest args) &body body)

A simple macro to open one or more files providing the streams for the BODY. The ARGS is a list of (stream filespec options*) as supplied to WITH-OPEN-FILE.

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(path-join &rest pathnames)

Build a pathname by merging from right to left. With path-join you can pass the elements of the pathname being built in the order they appear in it:

(path-join (user-homedir-pathname) config-dir config-file)
≡ (uiop:merge-pathnames* config-file
   (uiop:merge-pathnames* config-dir
    (user-homedir-pathname)))

Note that path-join does not coerce the parts of the pathname into directories; you have to do that yourself.

(path-join "dir1" "dir2" "file") -> #p"file"
(path-join "dir1/" "dir2/" "file") -> #p"dir1/dir2/file"

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(write-stream-into-file stream pathname &key if-exists if-does-not-exist)

Read STREAM and write the contents into PATHNAME.

STREAM will be closed afterwards, so wrap it with make-concatenated-stream if you want it left open.

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(write-file-into-stream pathname output &key if-does-not-exist external-format)

Write the contents of FILE into STREAM.

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(file= file1 file2 &key buffer-size)

Compare FILE1 and FILE2 octet by octet, (possibly) using buffers of BUFFER-SIZE.

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(file-size file &key element-type)

The size of FILE, in units of ELEMENT-TYPE (defaults to bytes).

The size is computed by opening the file and getting the length of the resulting stream.

If all you want is to read the file's size in octets from its metadata, consider trivial-file-size:file-size-in-octets instead.

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(exe p)

If P, a pathname designator, has no extension, then, on Windows only, add an extension of .exe.

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(resolve-executable p)

Look for an executable using the PATH environment variable. P is a pathname designator.

On Windows only, if P does not have an extension, it assumed to end in .exe.

Note that this function does not check the current directory (even on Windows) and it does not care if P is already an absolute pathname: it only cares about its name and type.

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(format-file-size-human-readable stream file-size &key flavor space suffix)

Write FILE-SIZE, a file size in bytes, to STREAM, in human-readable form.

STREAM is interpreted as by format.

If FLAVOR is nil, kilobytes are 1024 bytes and SI prefixes are used.

If FLAVOR is :si, kilobytes are 1000 bytes and SI prefixes are used.

If FLAVOR is :iec, kilobytes are 1024 bytes and IEC prefixes (Ki, Mi, etc.) are used.

If SPACE is non-nil, include a space between the number and the prefix. (Defaults to T if FLAVOR is :si.)

SUFFIX is the suffix to use; defaults to B if FLAVOR is :iec, otherwise empty.

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(file-size-human-readable file &key flavor space suffix stream)

Format the size of FILE (in octets) using format-file-size-human-readable. The size of file is found by trivial-file-size:file-size-in-octets.

Inspired by the function of the same name in Emacs.

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Symbols

(find-keyword string)

If STRING has been interned as a keyword, return it.

Like make-keyword, but preferable in most cases, because it doesn't intern a keyword -- which is usually both unnecessary and unwise.

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(bound-value s &optional default)

If S is bound, return (values s t). Otherwise, return DEFAULT and nil.

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Arrays

(array-index-row-major array row-major-index)

The inverse of ARRAY-ROW-MAJOR-INDEX.

Given an array and a row-major index, return a list of subscripts.

 (apply #'aref (array-index-row-major i))
 ≡ (array-row-major-aref i)

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(undisplace-array array)

Recursively get the fundamental array that ARRAY is displaced to.

Return the fundamental array, and the start and end positions into it.

Borrowed from Erik Naggum.

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Queue

Norvig-style queues, but wrapped in objects so they don't overflow the printer, and with a more concise, Arc-inspired API.

(queuep g)

Test for a queue.

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(queue &rest initial-contents)

Build a new queue with INITIAL-CONTENTS.

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(clear-queue queue)

Return QUEUE's contents and reset it.

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(qlen queue)

The number of items in QUEUE.

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(qlist queue)

A list of the items in QUEUE. Does not cons.

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(enq item queue)

Insert ITEM at the end of QUEUE.

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(deq queue)

Remove item from the front of the QUEUE.

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(undeq item queue)

Add an item to the front of QUEUE. For an empty queue, this does the same thing as ENQ.

For a queue with elements, this adds a new element onto the front of queue (like pushing to an ordinary list.

This is called undeq because it can be used to undo a deq.

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(front queue)

The first element in QUEUE.

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(queue-empty-p queue)

Is QUEUE empty?

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(qconc queue list)

Destructively concatenate LIST onto the end of QUEUE. Return the queue.

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(qappend queue list)

Append the elements of LIST onto the end of QUEUE. Return the queue.

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Box

(box value)

Box a value.

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(unbox x)

The value in the box X.

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Numbers

(fixnump n)

Same as `(typep N 'fixnum)'.

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(finc ref &optional (delta 1))

Like incf, but returns the old value instead of the new.

An alternative to using -1 as the starting value of a counter, which can prevent optimization.

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(fdec ref &optional (delta 1))

Like decf, but returns the old value instead of the new.

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(parse-float string &key start end junk-allowed type)

Parse STRING as a float of TYPE.

The type of the float is determined by, in order:

  • TYPE, if it is supplied;

  • The type specified in the exponent of the string;

  • or *read-default-float-format*.

    (parse-float "1.0") => 1.0s0 (parse-float "1.0d0") => 1.0d0 (parse-float "1.0s0" :type 'double-float) => 1.0d0

Of course you could just use parse-number, but sometimes only a float will do.

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(round-to number &optional divisor)

Like round, but return the resulting number.

 (round 15 10) => 2
 (round-to 15 10) => 20

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(bits int &key big-endian)

Return a bit vector of the bits in INT. Defaults to little-endian.

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(unbits bits &key big-endian)

Turn a sequence of BITS into an integer. Defaults to little-endian.

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(shrink n by)

Decrease N by a factor.

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(grow n by)

Increase N by a factor.

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(shrinkf g n)

Shrink the value in a place by a factor.

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(growf g n)

Grow the value in a place by a factor.

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(random-in-range low high)

Random number in the range [low,high).

LOW and HIGH are automatically swapped if HIGH is less than LOW.

Note that the value of LOW+HIGH may be greater than the range that can be represented as a number in CL. E.g., you can generate a random double float with

(random-in-range most-negative-double-float most-positive-double-float)

even though (+ most-negative-double-float most-positive-double-float) would cause a floating-point overflow.

From Zetalisp.

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(float-precision-contagion &rest ns)

Perform numeric contagion on the elements of NS.

That is, if any element of NS is a float, then every number in NS will be returned as "a float of the largest format among all the floating-point arguments to the function".

This does nothing but numeric contagion: the number of arguments returned is the same as the number of arguments given.

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Octets

(octet-vector-p x)

Is X an octet vector?

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(make-octet-vector size)

Make an octet vector of SIZE elements.

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(octet-vector &rest args)

Constructor an octet vector from ARGS.

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(octets n &key big-endian)

Return N, an integer, as an octet vector. Defaults to little-endian order.

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(unoctets bytes &key big-endian)

Concatenate BYTES, an octet vector, into an integer. Defaults to little-endian order.

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(octet-vector= v1 v2 &key start1 end1 start2 end2)

Like string= for octet vectors.

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Time

(universal-to-unix time)

Convert a universal time to a Unix time.

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(unix-to-universal time)

Convert a Unix time to a universal time.

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(get-unix-time)

The current time as a count of seconds from the Unix epoch.

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(date-leap-year-p year)

Is YEAR a leap year in the Gregorian calendar?

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(time-since time)

Return seconds since TIME.

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(time-until time)

Return seconds until TIME.

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(interval &key seconds minutes hours days weeks months years month-days year-days)

A verbose but readable way of specifying intervals in seconds.

Intended as a more readable alternative to idioms like (let ((day-in-seconds #.(* 24 60 60))) ...)

Has a compiler macro.

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Clos

(make class &rest initargs &key &allow-other-keys)

Shorthand for make-instance. Unlike make-instance, this is not a generic function, so it can do compile-time sanity checking.

After Eulisp.

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(class-name-of x)

The class name of the class of X.

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(class-name-safe x)

The class name of the class of X. If X is a class, the name of the class itself.

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(find-class-safe x &optional env)

The class designated by X. If X is a class, it designates itself.

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(defmethods class (self . slots) &body body)

Concisely define methods that specialize on the same class.

You can already use defgeneric to define an arbitrary number of methods on a single generic function without having to repeat the name of the function:

(defgeneric fn (x)
  (:method ((x string)) ...)
  (:method ((x number)) ...))

Which is equivalent to:

(defgeneric fn (x))

(defmethod fn ((x string))
  ...)

(defmethod fn ((x number))
  ...)

Similarly, you can use defmethods to define methods that specialize on the same class, and access the same slots, without having to repeat the names of the class or the slots:

(defmethods my-class (self x y)
  (:method initialize-instance :after (self &key)
    ...)
  (:method print-object (self stream)
    ...)
  (:method some-method ((x string) self)
    ...))

Which is equivalent to:

(defmethod initialize-instance :after ((self my-class) &key)
  (with-slots (x y) self
    ...))

(defmethod print-object ((self my-class) stream)
  (with-slots (x y) self
    ...))

(defmethod some-method ((x string) (self my-class))
  (with-slots (y) self              ;!
    ...))

Note in particular that self can appear in any position, and that you can freely specialize the other arguments.

Just as in with-slots, slots can be renamed:

(defmethods my-class (self (abscissa x) (ordinate y))
  ...)

You can also use defmethods in place of with-accessors, by using a function-quote:

(defmethods my-class (self (x #'my-class-x)
                           (y #'my-class-y))
  ...)

(The difference from using with-slots is the scope of the slot bindings: they are established outside of the method definition, which means argument bindings shadow slot bindings:

(some-method "foo" (make 'my-class :x "bar"))
=> "foo"

Since slot bindings are lexically outside the argument bindings, this is surely correct, even if it makes defmethods slightly harder to explain in terms of simpler constructs.)

Is defmethods trivial? Yes, in terms of its implementation. This docstring is far longer than the code it documents. But you may find it does a lot to keep heavily object-oriented code readable and organized, without any loss of power.

Note that defmethods may also be useful when converting state machines written using labels into an object-oriented style.

This construct is very loosely inspired by impl blocks in Rust.

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Hooks

(add-hook hook fn &key append)

Add FN to the value of HOOK.

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(remove-hook hook fn)

Remove FN from the symbol value of HOOK.

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(with-hook-restart &body body)

NO DOCS!

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(run-hooks &rest hooks)

Run all the hooks in HOOKS, without arguments. The variable *hook* is bound to the name of each hook as it is being run.

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(run-hook hook &rest args)

Apply each function in HOOK to ARGS.

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(run-hook-until-failure hook &rest args)

Like run-hook-with-args, but quit once a function returns nil.

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(run-hook-until-success hook &rest args)

Like run-hook-with-args, but quit once a function returns non-nil.

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Fbind

(fbind bindings &body body)

Binds values in the function namespace.

That is, (fbind ((fn (lambda () ...)))) ≡ (flet ((fn () ...))),

except that a bare symbol in BINDINGS is rewritten as (symbol symbol).

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(fbind* bindings &body body)

Like fbind, but creates bindings sequentially.

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(fbindrec bindings &body body)

Like fbind, but creates recursive bindings.

The consequences of referring to one binding in the expression that generates another are undefined.

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(fbindrec* bindings &body body)

Like fbindrec, but the function defined in each binding can be used in successive bindings.

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Reader

(with-standard-input-syntax &body body)

Like with-standard-io-syntax, but only bind the variables that control the reader, not the printer.

This may be preferable to using with-standard-io-syntax when loading data, as it will not effect how errors are printed, thus preserving debugging information.

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Packages

(package-exports &optional package)

Return a list of the symbols exported by PACKAGE.

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(package-names package)

Return a list of all the names of PACKAGE: its name and its nicknames.

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(package-name-keyword package)

Return the name of PACKAGE as a keyword.

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(find-external-symbol string package &key error)

If PACKAGE exports a symbol named STRING, return it. If PACKAGE does not contain such a symbol, or if the symbol is not exported, then nil is returned, unless ERROR is non-nil, in which case an error is signaled.

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(export-always symbols &optional (package nil package-supplied?))

Like export, but also evaluated at compile time.

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(export-only export/s &optional package)

Like EXPORT, but unexport any other, existing exports.

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(export-only-always symbols &optional (package nil package-supplied?))

Like export-only, but also evaluated at compile time.

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Heap

(make-heap &key size element-type key test)

NO DOCS!

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(heap-insert heap new-item)

Insert NEW-ITEM into HEAP.

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(heap-maximum heap)

Return (without extracting) the greatest element in HEAP.

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(heap-extract heap i)

Destructively extract the element in heap at index I, counting from the greatest element.

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(heap-extract-maximum heap)

Destructively extract the greatest element of HEAP.

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(heap-extract-all heap)

Destructively extract all the elements of HEAP from greatest to least.

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Lists

(filter-map fn list &rest lists)

Map FN over (LIST . LISTS) like mapcar, but omit empty results.

 (filter-map fn ...)
 ≅ (remove nil (mapcar fn ...))

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(car-safe x)

The car of X, or nil if X is not a cons.

This is different from Alexandria’s ensure-car, which returns the atom.

(ensure-car '(1 . 2)) => 1
(car-safe '(1 . 2)) => 1
(ensure-car 1) => 1
(car-safe 1) => nil

From Emacs Lisp.

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(cdr-safe x)

The cdr of X, or nil if X is not a cons. From Emacs Lisp.

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(append1 list item)

Append an atom to a list.

(append1 list item)
≡ (append list (list item))

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(in x &rest items)

Is X equal to any of ITEMS?

(in x xs...) is always equivalent to (and (member x xs :test equal) t), but in can sometimes compile to more efficient code when the candidate matches are constant.

From Arc.

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(memq item list)

Like (member ... :test #'eq). Should only be used for symbols.

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(delq item list)

Like (delete ... :test #'eq), but only for lists.

Almost always used as (delq nil ...).

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(mapply fn list &rest lists)

mapply is a cousin of mapcar.

If you think of mapcar as using funcall:

(mapcar #'- '(1 2 3))
≅ (loop for item in '(1 2 3)
        collect (funcall #'- item))

Then mapply does the same thing, but with apply instead.

(loop for item in '((1 2 3) (4 5 6))
        collect (apply #'+ item))
=> (6 15)

(mapply #'+ '((1 2 3) (4 5 6)))
=> (6 15)

In variadic use, mapply acts as if append had first been used:

(mapply #'+ xs ys)
≡ (mapply #'+ (mapcar #'append xs ys))

But the actual implementation is more efficient.

mapply can convert a list of two-element lists into an alist:

(mapply #'cons '((x 1) (y 2))
=> '((x . 1) (y . 2))

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(assocdr item alist &rest args &key &allow-other-keys)

Like (cdr (assoc ...))

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(assocadr item alist &rest args &key &allow-other-keys)

Like assocdr for alists of proper lists.

 (assocdr 'x '((x 1))) => '(1)
 (assocadr 'x '((x 1))) => 1

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(rassocar item alist &rest args &key &allow-other-keys)

Like (car (rassoc ...))

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(firstn n list)

The first N elements of LIST, as a fresh list:

(firstn 4 (iota 10))
=> (0 1 2 4)

(I do not know why this extremely useful function did not make it into Common Lisp, unless it was deliberately left out as an exercise for Maclisp users.)

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(powerset set)

Return the powerset of SET. Uses a non-recursive algorithm.

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(efface item list)

Destructively remove only the first occurence of ITEM in LIST.

From Lisp 1.5.

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(pop-assoc key alist &rest args)

Like assoc but, if there was a match, delete it from ALIST.

From Newlisp.

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(mapcar-into fn list)

Like (map-into list fn list).

From PAIP.

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(nthrest n list)

Alias for nthcdr.

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(plist-keys plist)

Return the keys of a plist.

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(plist-values plist)

Return the values of a plist.

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Sequences

(sequencep x)

Is X a sequence?

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(do-each (var seq &optional return) &body body)

Iterate over the elements of SEQ, a sequence. If SEQ is a list, this is equivalent to dolist.

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(nsubseq seq start &optional end)

Return a subsequence that may share structure with SEQ.

Note that nsubseq gets its aposematic leading n not because it is itself destructive, but because, unlike subseq, destructive operations on the subsequence returned may mutate the original.

nsubseq also works with setf, with the same behavior as replace.

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(filter pred seq &rest args &key count &allow-other-keys)

Almost, but not quite, an alias for remove-if-not.

The difference is the handling of COUNT: for filter, COUNT is the number of items to keep, not remove.

 (remove-if-not #'oddp '(1 2 3 4 5) :count 2)
 => '(1 3 5)

 (filter #'oddp '(1 2 3 4 5) :count 2)
 => '(1 3)

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(filterf g pred &rest args)

Modify-macro for FILTER. The place designed by the first argument is set to the result of calling FILTER with PRED, the place, and ARGS.

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(keep item seq &rest args &key test from-end key count &allow-other-keys)

Almost, but not quite, an alias for remove with :test-not instead of :test.

The difference is the handling of COUNT. For keep, COUNT is the number of items to keep, not remove.

 (remove 'x '(x y x y x y) :count 2)
 => '(y y x y)

 (keep 'x '(x y x y x y) :count 2)
 => '(x x)

keep becomes useful with the KEY argument:

 (keep 'x ((x 1) (y 2) (x 3)) :key #'car)
 => '((x 1) (x 3))

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(single seq)

Is SEQ a sequence of one element?

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(only-elt seq)

Return the only element of SEQ. If SEQ is empty, or contains more than one element, signal an error.

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(partition pred seq &key start end key)

Partition elements of SEQ into those for which PRED returns true and false.

Return two values, one with each sequence.

Exactly equivalent to: (values (remove-if-not predicate seq) (remove-if predicate seq)) except it visits each element only once.

Note that partition is not just assort with an up-or-down predicate. assort returns its groupings in the order they occur in the sequence; partition always returns the “true” elements first.

(assort '(1 2 3) :key #'evenp) => ((1 3) (2))
(partition #'evenp '(1 2 3)) => (2), (1 3)

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(partitions preds seq &key start end key)

Generalized version of PARTITION.

PREDS is a list of predicates. For each predicate, partitions returns a filtered copy of SEQ. As a second value, it returns an extra sequence of the items that do not match any predicate.

Items are assigned to the first predicate they match.

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(assort seq &key key test start end)

Return SEQ assorted by KEY.

 (assort (iota 10)
         :key (lambda (n) (mod n 3)))
 => '((0 3 6 9) (1 4 7) (2 5 8))

You can think of assort as being akin to remove-duplicates:

 (mapcar #'first (assort list))
 ≡ (remove-duplicates list :from-end t)

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(runs seq &key start end key test)

Return a list of runs of similar elements in SEQ. The arguments START, END, and KEY are as for reduce.

(runs '(head tail head head tail))
=> '((head) (tail) (head head) (tail))

The function TEST is called with the first element of the run as its first argument.

(runs '(1 2 3 1 2 3) :test #'<)
=> ((1 2 3) (1 2 3))

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(batches seq n &key start end even)

Return SEQ in batches of N elements.

(batches (iota 11) 2)
=> ((0 1) (2 3) (4 5) (6 7) (8 9) (10))

If EVEN is non-nil, then SEQ must be evenly divisible into batches of size N, with no leftovers.

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(frequencies seq &rest hash-table-args &key key &allow-other-keys)

Return a hash table with the count of each unique item in SEQ. As a second value, return the length of SEQ.

From Clojure.

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(scan fn seq &rest args &key from-end start end initial-value &allow-other-keys)

Return the partial reductions of SEQ.

Each element of the result sequence is the result of calling reduce on the elements of the sequence up to that point (inclusively).

(reduce #'+ '(1))       => 1
(reduce #'+ '(1 2))     => 3
(reduce #'+ '(1 2 3))   => 6
(reduce #'+ '(1 2 3 4)) => 10
(scan   #'+ '(1 2 3 4)) => '(1 3 6 10)

The result of calling scan on an empty sequence is always an empty sequence, however.

(reduce #'+ '()) => 0
(scan   #'+ '()) => '()

This is sometimes called a "prefix sum", "cumulative sum", or "inclusive scan".

From APL.

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(nub seq &rest args &key start end key test)

Remove duplicates from SEQ, starting from the end. That means, for each duplicate, the first occurrence will be the kept, and subsequent occurrences will be discarded.

TEST defaults to equal.

From Haskell.

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(gcp seqs &key test)

The greatest common prefix of SEQS.

If there is no common prefix, return NIL.

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(gcs seqs &key test)

The greatest common suffix of SEQS.

If there is no common suffix, return NIL.

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(of-length length)

Return a predicate that returns T when called on a sequence of length LENGTH.

(funcall (of-length 3) '(1 2 3)) => t
(funcall (of-length 1) '(1 2 3)) => nil

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(length< &rest seqs)

Is each length-designator in SEQS shorter than the next? A length designator may be a sequence or an integer.

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(length> &rest seqs)

Is each length-designator in SEQS longer than the next? A length designator may be a sequence or an integer.

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(length>= &rest seqs)

Is each length-designator in SEQS longer or as long as the next? A length designator may be a sequence or an integer.

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(length<= &rest seqs)

Is each length-designator in SEQS as long or shorter than the next? A length designator may be a sequence or an integer.

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(longer x y)

Return the longer of X and Y.

If X and Y are of equal length, return X.

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(longest seqs)

Return the longest seq in SEQS.

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(slice seq start &optional end)

Like subseq, but allows negative bounds to specify offsets. Both START and END accept negative bounds.

 (slice "string" -3 -1) => "in"

Setf of slice is like setf of ldb: afterwards, the place being set holds a new sequence which is not EQ to the old.

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(ordering seq &key unordered-to-end from-end test key)

Given a sequence, return a function that, when called with sort, restores the original order of the sequence.

That is, for any SEQ (without duplicates), it is always true that

 (equal seq (sort (reshuffle seq) (ordering seq)))

FROM-END controls what to do in case of duplicates. If FROM-END is true, the last occurrence of each item is preserved; otherwise, only the first occurrence counts.

TEST controls identity; it should be a valid test for a hash table. If the items cannot be compared that way, you can use KEY to transform them.

UNORDERED-TO-END controls where to sort items that are not present in the original ordering. By default they are sorted first but, if UNORDERED-TO-END is true, they are sorted last. In either case, they are left in no particular order.

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(take n seq)

Return, at most, the first N elements of SEQ, as a new sequence of the same type as SEQ.

If N is longer than SEQ, SEQ is simply copied.

If N is negative, then |N| elements are taken (in their original order) from the end of SEQ.

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(drop n seq)

Return all but the first N elements of SEQ. The sequence returned is a new sequence of the same type as SEQ.

If N is greater than the length of SEQ, returns an empty sequence of the same type.

If N is negative, then |N| elements are dropped from the end of SEQ.

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(take-while pred seq)

Return the prefix of SEQ for which PRED returns true.

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(drop-while pred seq)

Return the largest possible suffix of SEQ for which PRED returns false when called on the first element.

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(drop-prefix prefix seq &key test)

If SEQ starts with PREFIX, remove it.

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(bestn n seq pred &key key memo)

Partial sorting. Equivalent to (firstn N (sort SEQ PRED)), but much faster, at least for small values of N.

With MEMO, use a decorate-sort-undecorate transform to ensure KEY is only ever called once per element.

The name is from Arc.

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(nth-best n seq pred &key key)

Return the Nth-best element of SEQ under PRED.

Equivalent to

(elt (sort (copy-seq seq) pred) n)

Or even

(elt (bestn (1+ n) seq pred) n)

But uses a selection algorithm for better performance than either.

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(nth-best! n seq pred &key key)

Destructive version of nth-best. Note that this function requires that SEQ be a vector.

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(reshuffle seq &key element-type)

Like alexandria:shuffle, but non-destructive.

Regardless of the type of SEQ, the return value is always a vector.

If ELEMENT-TYPE is provided, this is the element type (modulo upgrading) of the vector returned.

If ELEMENT-TYPE is not provided, then the element type of the vector returned is T, if SEQ is not a vector. If SEQ is a vector, then the element type of the vector returned is the same as the as the element type of SEQ.

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(sort-new seq pred &key key element-type)

Return a sorted vector of the elements of SEQ.

You can think of this as a non-destructive version of sort, except that it always returns a vector. (If you're going to copy a sequence for the express purpose of sorting it, you might as well copy it into a form that can be sorted efficiently.)

ELEMENT-TYPE is interpreted as for reshuffle.

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(stable-sort-new seq pred &key key element-type)

Like sort-new, but sort as if by stable-sort instead of sort.

View source

(extrema seq pred &key key start end)

Like EXTREMUM, but returns both the minimum and the maximum (as two values).

 (extremum (iota 10) #'>) => 9
 (extrema (iota 10) #'>) => 9, 0

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(halves seq &optional split)

Return, as two values, the first and second halves of SEQ. SPLIT designates where to split SEQ; it defaults to half the length, but can be specified.

If SPLIT is not provided, the length is halved using ceiling rather than truncate. This is on the theory that, if SEQ is a single-element list, it should be returned unchanged.

If SPLIT is negative, then the split is determined by counting |split| elements from the right (or, equivalently, length+split elements from the left.

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(dsu-sort seq fn &key key stable)

Decorate-sort-undecorate using KEY. Useful when KEY is an expensive function (e.g. database access).

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(dsu-sort-new seq fn &key key stable)

Like dsu-sort, but returning a new vector.

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(deltas seq &optional fn)

Return the successive differences in SEQ.

 (deltas '(4 9 -5 1 2))
 => '(4 5 -14 6 1)

Note that the first element of SEQ is also the first element of the return value.

By default, the delta is the difference, but you can specify another function as a second argument:

(deltas '(2 4 2 6) #'/)
=> '(2 2 1/2 3)

From Q.

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(inconsistent-graph-constraints inconsistent-graph)

The constraints of an inconsistent-graph error. Cf. toposort.

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(toposort constraints &key test tie-breaker from-end unordered-to-end)

Turn CONSTRAINTS into a predicate for use with SORT.

Each constraint should be two-element list, where the first element of the list should come before the second element of the list.

(def dem-bones '((toe foot)
                 (foot heel)
                 (heel ankle)
                 (ankle shin)
                 (shin knee)
                 (knee back)
                 (back shoulder)
                 (shoulder neck)
                 (neck head)))
(sort (reshuffle (mapcar #'car dem-bones))
      (toposort dem-bones))
=> (TOE FOOT HEEL ANKLE SHIN KNEE BACK SHOULDER NECK)

If the graph is inconsistent, signals an error of type inconsistent-graph:

(toposort '((chicken egg) (egg chicken)))
=> Inconsistent graph: ((CHICKEN EGG) (EGG CHICKEN))

TEST, FROM-END, and UNORDERED-TO-END are passed through to ordering.

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(intersperse new-elt seq)

Return a sequence like SEQ, but with NEW-ELT inserted between each element.

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(mvfold fn seq &rest seeds)

Like reduce extended to multiple values.

Calling mvfold with one seed is equivalent to reduce:

(mvfold fn xs seed) ≡ (reduce fn xs :initial-value seed)

However, you can also call mvfold with multiple seeds:

(mvfold fn xs seed1 seed2 seed3 ...)

How is this useful? Consider extracting the minimum of a sequence:

(reduce #'min xs)

Or the maximum:

(reduce #'max xs)

But both?

(reduce (lambda (cons item)
          (cons (min (car cons) item)
                (max (cdr cons) item)))
        xs
        :initial-value (cons (elt xs 0) (elt xs 0)))

You can do this naturally with mvfold.

(mvfold (lambda (min max item)
          (values (min item min)
                  (max item max)))
        xs (elt xs 0) (elt xs 0))

In general mvfold provides a functional idiom for “loops with book-keeping” where we might otherwise have to use recursion or explicit iteration.

Has a compiler macro that generates efficient code when the number of SEEDS is fixed at compile time (as it usually is).

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(mvfoldr fn seq &rest seeds)

Like (reduce FN SEQ :from-end t)' extended to multiple values. Cf. mvfold`.

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(repeat-sequence seq n)

Return a sequence like SEQ, with the same content, but repeated N times.

(repeat-sequence "13" 3)
=> "131313"

The length of the sequence returned will always be the length of SEQ times N.

This means that 0 repetitions results in an empty sequence:

(repeat-sequence "13" 0)
=> ""

Conversely, N may be greater than the possible length of a sequence, as long as SEQ is empty.

(repeat-sequence "" (1+ array-dimension-limit))
=> ""

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(seq= &rest xs)

Like equal, but recursively compare sequences element-by-element.

Two elements X and Y are seq= if they are equal, or if they are both sequences of the same length and their elements are all seq=.

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(do-splits ((left right &optional not-at-end?) (seq split-fn &key (start 0) end from-end) &optional return) &body body)

For each run of elements in SEQ that does not satisfy SPLIT-FN, call the body with LEFT bound to the start of the run and RIGHT bound to the end of the run.

If split-sequence-if did not exist, you could define a simple version trivially with do-splits and collecting:

(defun split-sequence-if (fn seq &key (start 0) end from-end)
  (collecting
    (do-splits ((l r) (seq fn :start start :end end :from-end from-end))
      (collect (subseq seq l r)))))

Providing NOT-AT-END? will bind it as a variable that is T if RIGHT is not equal to END, and null otherwise. This can be useful when, in processing a sequence, you want to replace existing delimiters, but do nothing at the end.

In general do-splits will be found useful in situations where you want to iterate over subsequences in the manner of split-sequence, but don't actually need to realize the sequences.

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(collapse-duplicates seq &key key test)

Remove adjacent duplicates in SEQ.

Repetitions that are not adjacent are left alone.

(remove-duplicates '(1 1 2 2 1 1)) => '(1 2)
(collapse-duplicates  '(1 1 2 2 1 1)) => '(1 2 1)

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Strings

(whitespacep char)

Is CHAR whitespace?

Spaces, tabs, any kind of line break, page breaks, and no-break spaces are considered whitespace.

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(trim-whitespace string)

STRING without whitespace at ends.

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(ascii-char-p char)

Is CHAR an ASCII char?

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(with-string (var &optional stream) &body body)

Bind VAR to the character stream designated by STREAM.

STREAM is resolved like the DESTINATION argument to format: it can be any of t (for *standard-output*), nil (for a string stream), a string with a fill pointer, or a stream to be used directly.

When possible, it is a good idea for functions that build strings to take a stream to write to, so callers can avoid consing a string just to write it to a stream. This macro makes it easy to write such functions.

(defun format-x (x &key stream)
  (with-string (s stream)
    ...))

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(blankp seq)

SEQ is either empty, or consists entirely of characters that satisfy whitespacep.

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(collapse-whitespace string &key space stream)

Collapse runs of whitespace in STRING. Each run of space, newline, and other whitespace characters is replaced by a single space character (or SPACE, if that is specified).

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(concat &rest strings)

Abbreviation for (concatenate 'string ...).

From Emacs Lisp.

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(mapconcat fun seq separator &key stream)

Build a string by mapping FUN over SEQ. Separate each value with SEPARATOR.

Equivalent to (reduce #'concat (intersperse SEP SEQ) :key FUN) but more efficient.

STREAM can be used to specify a stream to write to. It is resolved like the first argument to format.

From Emacs Lisp.

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(string-join strings &optional separator)

Like `(mapconcat #'string STRINGS (string SEPARATOR))'.

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(string-upcase-initials string)

Return STRING with the first letter of each word capitalized. This differs from STRING-CAPITALIZE in that the other characters in each word are not changed.

 (string-capitalize "an ACRONYM") -> "An Acronym")
 (string-upcase-initials "an ACRONYM") -> "An ACRONYM")

From Emacs Lisp (where it is simply upcase-initials).

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(nstring-upcase-initials string)

Destructive version of string-upcase-initials.

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(same-case-p string)

Every character with case in STRING has the same case. Return :upper or :lower as appropriate.

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(nstring-invert-case string)

Destructive version of string-invert-case.

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(string-invert-case string)

Invert the case of STRING. This does the same thing as a case-inverting readtable:

  • If the string is uppercase, downcase the string.
  • If the string is lowercase, upcase the string.
  • If the string is mixed-case, leave it alone.

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(words string &key start end)

Split STRING into words.

The definition of a word is the same as that used by string-capitalize: a run of alphanumeric characters.

(words "Four score and seven years")
=> ("Four" "score" "and" "seven" "years")

(words "2 words")
=> ("2" "words")

(words "two_words")
=> ("two" "words")

(words "\"I'm here,\" Tom said presently.")
=> ("I" "m" "here" "Tom" "said" "presently")

Cf. tokens.

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(tokens string &key start end)

Separate STRING into tokens. Tokens are runs of non-whitespace characters.

(tokens "\"I'm here,\" Tom said presently.")
=> ("\"I'm" "here,\"" "Tom" "said" "presently.")

Cf. words.

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(word-wrap string &key column stream)

Return a word-wrapped version of STRING that breaks at COLUMN.

Note that this is not a general-purpose word-wrapping routine like you would find in a text editor: in particular, any existing whitespace is removed.

View source

(lines string &key eol-style honor-crlf keep-eols)

Return a list of the lines in STRING, stripped of any EOL characters and including the last nonempty line even if it has no EOL characters, or NIL if STRING is empty or NIL.

EOL-STYLE can be one of the following:

  • NIL, the default, which means split on #\Newline.
  • :CR, which means split on CR, i.e., #\Return.
  • :LF, which means split on LF, i.e., #\Linefeed.
  • :CRLF, which means split on CRLF, i.e., #\Return followed by #\Linefeed.
  • :ASCII, which means split on any of CR, LF, and CRLF.
  • :UNICODE, which means split on any of the newlines described in Section 5.8, "Newline Guidelines", of the Unicode Standard, available at http://www.unicode.org/versions/latest/. These newlines are CR, LF, CRLF, next line, vertical tab, form feed, line separator, and paragraph separator.
  • A predicate that accepts one CHARACTER and returns non-NIL if the CHARACTER should be split on, NIL otherwise.

:CR, :LF, :CRLF, and :ASCII assume that the Common Lisp implementation represents CHARACTERs internally as ASCII or one of its supersets (e.g., extended ASCII), and :UNICODE assumes that it represents them internally as Unicode (which is also a superset of ASCII). Additionally, all of the EOL-STYLEs just mentioned assume that #\Newline is either #\Return or #\Linefeed (which can be reasonably expected).

If HONOR-CRLF is supplied, it overrides EOL-STYLE's interpretation of CRLF except if EOL-STYLE is NIL or :CRLF, in which case HONOR-CRLF has no effect. (The :CRLF, :ASCII and :UNICODE EOL-STYLEs honor CRLF by default; the rest do not.)

If KEEP-EOLS is non-NIL, LINES does not strip the EOL characters from the lines.

Note that Common Lisp implementations may convert some or all of CR, LF, and CRLF to #\Newline when reading from file streams, which causes LINES to split the contents of files differently across implementations. :CR, :LF, and :CRLF are suitable only when STRING's lines certainly end with the corresponding EOL character, but if STRING originates from a file stream, LINES splits nothing unless the corresponding EOL character is the same as #\Newline, in which case LINES behaves as if EOL-STYLE were NIL (and indeed NIL is preferable to :CR, :LF, and :CRLF, though not to :ASCII and :UNICODE).

:UNICODE and :ASCII are the preferred EOL-STYLEs, the former to be maximally portable and correct, and the latter when Unicode is inapt. With either EOL-STYLE, LINES splits the entire contents of files correctly only when the Common Lisp implementation converts only CR, only LF, or all of CR, LF, and CRLF, to #\Newline (and when it converts only CR or only LF, #\Newline must the same as the EOL character in question). Again with either EOL-STYLE, LINES splits the lines of files, read with READ-LINE, correctly only when the implementation converts only LF or all of CR, LF, and CRLF to #\Newline (which must be #\Linefeed). (Note the lack of the only-CR case when reading files line by line.) However, any incorrect behavior with :ASCII and :UNICODE is limited to LINES returning too many or too few empty lines. The former -- which is uncorrectable -- can occur when CR and LF are converted, but not CRLF, and the latter -- which can be corrected by supplying HONOR-CRLF as NIL -- when CR and CRLF are converted (to #\Return), but not LF, or when LF and CRLF are converted (to #\Linefeed), but not CR.

For example, to split lines on LF and CRLF (eschewing the recommended :ASCII and :UNICODE) when the Common Lisp implementation converts only LF to #\Newline (which must be #\Linefeed), which is the same behavior as Rust's std::io::BufRead.lines (https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/io/trait.BufRead.html#method.lines) and Go's bufio.ScanLines (https://golang.org/pkg/bufio/#ScanLines):

#.(ecase #\Newline (#\Linefeed))
(let ((string (coerce '(#\a #\Return
                        #\b #\Linefeed
                        #\c #\Return #\Linefeed
                        #\d)
                      'string)))
  (serapeum:lines string :eol-style :lf :honor-crlf t))
=> ("a^Mb" "c" "d")
;; where ^M is #\Return.

(EOL-STYLE cannot be NIL here because otherwise HONOR-CRLF would have no effect.)

To split lines in the same way as Python's str.splitlines (https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#str.splitlines) when the Common Lisp implementation converts only CR, only LF, or all of CR, LF, and CRLF, to #\Newline (as previously described), but also keeping the EOL characters in order to know what they were:

#.(ecase #\Newline ((#\Return #\Linefeed)))
;; Omit file separator from the example because its textual
;; representation (^\) can confuse documentation browsers.
(let ((string (coerce '(#\a #.(code-char #x001D)
                        #\b #.(code-char #x001E)
                        #\c)
                      'string)))
  (serapeum:lines
   string
   :eol-style (lambda (c)
                (serapeum:in
                 c #\Return #\Linefeed
                 #.(code-char #x000B)   ; #\Vt (vertical tab)
                 #\Page                 ; Form feed
                 #.(code-char #x001C)   ; #\Fs (file separator)
                 #.(code-char #x001D)   ; #\Gs (group separator)
                 #.(code-char #x001E)   ; #\Rs (record separator)
                 #.(code-char #x0085)   ; Next line
                 #.(code-char #x2028)   ; #\Line_Separator
                 #.(code-char #x2029))) ; #\Paragraph_Separator
   :honor-crlf t
   :keep-eols t))
=> ("a^]" "b^^" "c")
;; where ^] is group separator and ^^ is record separator.

To omit empty lines (thus uniformizing LINES's behavior across Common Lisp implementations):

#.(ecase #\Newline ((#\Return #\Linefeed)))
(let ((string (coerce '(#\a #\b #\c
                        #\Return #\Return #\Linefeed #\Linefeed
                        #\z)
                      'string)))
  (delete-if #'uiop:emptyp (serapeum:lines string :eol-style :unicode)))
=> ("abc" "z")

To additionally omit lines consisting only of whitespace:

#.(ecase #\Newline ((#\Return #\Linefeed)))
(let ((string (coerce '(#\a #\b #\c
                        #\Return #\Return #\Linefeed #\Linefeed
                        #\Space #\Linefeed
                        #\Tab #\Linefeed
                        #\z)
                      'string)))
  (delete-if #'uiop:emptyp
             (mapcar #'serapeum:trim-whitespace
                     (serapeum:lines string :eol-style :unicode))))
=> ("abc" "z")

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(fmt control-string &rest args)

A cousin of format expressly for fast formatting of strings.

Like (format nil ...), binding *print-pretty* to nil, which in some Lisps means a significant increase in speed.

Has a compiler macro with formatter.

View source

(escape string table &key start end stream)

Write STRING to STREAM, escaping with TABLE.

TABLE should be either a hash table, with characters for keys and strings for values, or a function that takes a character and returns (only) either a string or null.

That is, the signature of TABLE should be:

(function (character) (or string null))

where nil means to pass the character through unchanged.

STREAM can be used to specify a stream to write to, like the first argument to format. The default behavior, with no stream specified, is to return a string.

View source

(ellipsize string n &key ellipsis)

If STRING is longer than N, truncate it and append ELLIPSIS.

Note that the resulting string is longer than N by the length of ELLIPSIS, so if N is very small the string may come out longer than it started.

 (ellipsize "abc" 2)
 => "ab..."

From Arc.

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(string-prefix-p prefix string &key start1 end1 start2 end2)

Like string^=, but case-insensitive.

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(string^= prefix string &key start1 end1 start2 end2)

Is PREFIX a prefix of STRING?

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(string$= suffix string &key start1 end1 start2 end2)

Is SUFFIX a suffix of STRING?

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(string-suffix-p suffix string &key start1 end1 start2 end2)

Like string$=, but case-insensitive.

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(string-contains-p substring string &key start1 end1 start2 end2)

Like string*=, but case-insensitive.

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(string*= substring string &key start1 end1 start2 end2)

Is SUBSTRING a substring of STRING?

This is similar, but not identical, to SEARCH.

 (search nil "foo") => 0
 (search "nil" "nil") => 0
 (string*= nil "foo") => NIL
 (string*= nil "nil") => T

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(string~= token string &key start1 end1 start2 end2)

Does TOKEN occur in STRING as a token?

Equivalent to (find TOKEN (tokens STRING) :test #'string=), but without consing.

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(string-token-p token string &key start1 end1 start2 end2)

Like string~=, but case-insensitive.

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(string-replace-all old string new &key start end stream count)

Do search-and-replace for constant strings.

Note that START and END only affect where the replacements are made: the part of the string before START, and the part after END, are always included verbatim.

 (string-replace-all "old" "The old old way" "new"
                     :start 3 :end 6)
 => "The new old way"

COUNT can be used to limit the maximum number of occurrences to replace. If COUNT is not specified, every occurrence of OLD between START and END is replaced with NEW.

(string-replace-all "foo" "foo foo foo" "quux")
=> "quux quux quux"

(string-replace-all "foo" "foo foo foo" "quux" :count 2)
=> "quux quux foo"

STREAM can be used to specify a stream to write to. It is resolved like the first argument to format.

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(string-replace old string new &key start end stream)

Like string-replace-all, but only replace the first match.

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(chomp string &optional suffixes)

If STRING ends in one of SUFFIXES, remove that suffix.

SUFFIXES defaults to a Lisp newline, a literal line feed, a literal carriage return, or a literal carriage return followed by a literal line feed.

Takes care that the longest suffix is always removed first.

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(string-count substring string &key start end)

Count how many times SUBSTRING appears in STRING.

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(string+ &rest args)

Optimized function for building small strings.

Roughly equivalent to

(let ((*print-pretty* nil))
 (format nil "~@{~a}" args...))

But with a compiler macro that can sometimes result in more efficient code.

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Vectors

(ensure-vector x)

If X is a vector, return it. Otherwise, return a vector with X as its sole element.

View source

(vect &rest initial-contents)

Succinct constructor for adjustable vectors with fill pointers.

(vect 1 2 3)
≡ (make-array 3
        :adjustable t
        :fill-pointer 3
        :initial-contents (list 1 2 3))

The fill pointer is placed after the last element in INITIAL-CONTENTS.

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(values-vector vec)

Return the elements of VEC, a vector, as multiple values. This is to vectors what values-list is to lists.

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(pad-start vec length &optional pad)

Pad VEC, a vector, to LENGTH, using PAD. If VEC is already the same length, or longer, than LENGTH, return VEC unchanged.

(pad-start "abc" 3)
=> "abc"

If PAD is a sequence, then it is repeated before VEC to make up LENGTH.

(pad-start "abc" 9 "def")
=> "defdefabc"

If PAD is not a sequence, it is used to fill the remainder of VEC.

(pad-start "abc" 6 #x)
=> "xxxabc"

PAD defaults to the space character.

This function is most useful for strings, but it can be used with any vector. Note that the vector returned has the same element type as VEC, so PAD must satisfy that element type.

Loosely inspired by ECMA.

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(pad-end vec length &optional pad)

Pad VEC, a vector, to LENGTH, using PAD. Like pad-start, but padding is addded to the end, rather than the beginning.

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(vector-conc-extend vector new-elements &optional extension)

Add NEW-ELEMENTS to the end of VECTOR, an adjustable array with a fill-pointer. This is the practical equivalent to calling vector-push-extend on each element on NEW-ELEMENTS, but should be faster.

Returns VECTOR.

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Vector=

(vector= vec1 vec2 &key test start1 start2 end1 end2)

Like string= for any vector. If no TEST is supplied, elements are tested with eql.

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Internal Definitions

(local* &body body)

Like local, but leave the last form in BODY intact.

 (local*
   (defun aux-fn ...)
   (defun entry-point ...))
 =>
 (labels ((aux-fn ...))
   (defun entry-point ...)) 

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(local &body orig-body)

Make internal definitions using top-level definition forms.

Within local you can use top-level definition forms and have them create purely local definitions, like let, labels, and macrolet:

 (fboundp 'plus) ; => nil

 (local
   (defun plus (x y)
     (+ x y))
   (plus 2 2))
 ;; => 4

 (fboundp 'plus) ; => nil

Each form in BODY is subjected to partial expansion (with macroexpand-1) until either it expands into a recognized definition form (like defun) or it can be expanded no further.

(This means that you can use macros that expand into top-level definition forms to create local definitions.)

Just as at the real top level, a form that expands into progn (or an equivalent eval-when) is descended into, and definitions that occur within it are treated as top-level definitions.

(Support for eval-when is incomplete: eval-when is supported only when it is equivalent to progn).

The recognized definition forms are:

  • def, for lexical variables (as with letrec)
  • define-values, for multiple lexical variables at once
  • defun, for local functions (as with labels)
  • defalias, to bind values in the function namespace (like fbindrec*)
  • declaim, to make declarations (as with declare)
  • defconstant and defconst, which behave exactly like symbol macros
  • define-symbol-macro, to bind symbol macros (as with symbol-macrolet)

Also, with serious restrictions, you can use:

  • defmacro, for local macros (as with macrolet)

(Note that the top-level definition forms defined by Common Lisp are (necessarily) supplemented by three from Serapeum: def, define-values, and defalias.)

The exact order in which the bindings are made depends on how local is implemented at the time you read this. The only guarantees are that variables are bound sequentially; functions can always close over the bindings of variables, and over other functions; and macros can be used once they are defined.

 (local
   (def x 1)
   (def y (1+ x))
   y)
 => 2

 (local
   (defun adder (y)
     (+ x y))
   (def x 2)
   (adder 1))
 => 3

Perhaps surprisingly, let forms (as well as let* and multiple-value-bind) are descended into; the only difference is that defun is implicitly translated into defalias. This means you can use the top-level idiom of wrapping let around defun.

(local
  (let ((x 2))
    (defun adder (y)
      (+ x y)))
  (adder 2))
=> 4

Support for macros is sharply limited. (Symbol macros, on the other hand, are completely supported.)

  1. Macros defined with defmacro must precede all other expressions.

  2. Macros cannot be defined inside of binding forms like let.

  3. macrolet is not allowed at the top level of a local form.

These restrictions are undesirable, but well justified: it is impossible to handle the general case both correctly and portably, and while some special cases could be provided for, the cost in complexity of implementation and maintenance would be prohibitive.

The value returned by the local form is that of the last form in BODY. Note that definitions have return values in local just like they do at the top level. For example:

 (local
   (plus 2 2)
   (defun plus (x y)
     (+ x y)))

Returns plus, not 4.

The local macro is loosely based on Racket's support for internal definitions.

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(block-compile (&key entry-points (block-compile t)) &body body)

Shorthand for block compilation with local*.

Only the functions in ENTRY-POINTS will have global definitions. All other functions in BODY will be compiled as purely local functions, and all of their calls to one another will be compiled as local calls. This includes calls to the entry points, and even self-calls from within the entry points.

Note that declaim forms occuring inside of BODY will be translated into local declare forms.

If you pass `:block-compile nil', this macro is equivalent to progn. This may be useful during development.

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Tree Case

(tree-case keyform &body cases)

A variant of case optimized for when every key is an integer.

Comparison is done using eql.

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(tree-ecase keyform &body clauses)

Like tree-case, but signals an error if KEYFORM does not match any of the provided cases.

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(char-case keyform &body clauses)

Like case, but specifically for characters. Expands into tree-case.

As an extension to the generalized case syntax, the keys of a clause can be specified as a literal string.

(defun vowel? (c)
  (char-case c
    ("aeiouy" t)))

Signals an error if KEYFORM does not evaluate to a character.

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(char-ecase keyform &body clauses)

Like ecase, but specifically for characters. Expands into tree-case.

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Dispatch Case

(dispatch-case-error &key type datum)

NO DOCS!

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(dispatch-case (&rest exprs-and-types) &body clauses)

Dispatch on the types of multiple expressions, exhaustively.

Say you are working on a project where you need to handle timestamps represented both as universal times, and as instances of local-time:timestamp. You start by defining the appropriate types:

(defpackage :dispatch-case-example
  (:use :cl :alexandria :serapeum :local-time)
  (:shadow :time))
(in-package :dispatch-case-example)

(deftype universal-time ()
  '(integer 0 *))

(deftype time ()
  '(or universal-time timestamp))

Now you want to write a time= function that works on universal times, timestamps, and any combination thereof.

You can do this using etypecase-of:

(defun time= (t1 t2)
  (etypecase-of time t1
    (universal-time
     (etypecase-of time t2
       (universal-time
        (= t1 t2))
       (timestamp
        (= t1 (timestamp-to-universal t2)))))
    (timestamp
     (etypecase-of time t2
       (universal-time
        (time= t2 t1))
       (timestamp
        (timestamp= t1 t2))))))

This has the advantage of efficiency and exhaustiveness checking, but the serious disadvantage of being hard to read: to understand what each branch matches, you have to backtrack to the enclosing branch. This is bad enough when the nesting is only two layers deep.

Alternately, you could do it with defgeneric:

(defgeneric time= (t1 t2)
  (:method ((t1 integer) (t2 integer))
    (= t1 t2))
  (:method ((t1 timestamp) (t2 timestamp))
    (timestamp= t1 t2))
  (:method ((t1 integer) (t2 timestamp))
    (= t1 (timestamp-to-universal t2)))
  (:method ((t1 timestamp) (t2 integer))
    (time= t2 t1)))

This is easy to read, but it has three potential disadvantages. (1) There is no exhaustiveness checking. If, at some point in the future, you want to add another representation of time to your project, the compiler will not warn you if you forget to update time=. (This is bad enough with only two objects to dispatch on, but with three or more it gets rapidly easier to miss a case.) (2) You cannot use the universal-time type you just defined; it is a type, not a class, so you cannot specialize methods on it. (3) You are paying a run-time price for extensibility -- the inherent overhead of a generic function -- when extensibility is not what you want.

Using dispatch-case instead gives you the readability of defgeneric with the efficiency and safety of etypecase-of.

(defun time= (t1 t2)
  (dispatch-case ((time t1)
                  (time t2))
    ((universal-time universal-time)
     (= t1 t2))
    ((timestamp timestamp)
     (timestamp= t1 t2))
    ((universal-time timestamp)
     (= t1 (timestamp-to-universal t2)))
    ((timestamp universal-time)
     (time= t2 t1))))

The syntax of dispatch-case is much closer to defgeneric than it is to etypecase. The order in which clauses are defined does not matter, and you can define fallthrough clauses in the same way you would define fallthrough methods in defgeneric.

Suppose you wanted to write a time= function like the one above, but always convert times to timestamps before comparing them. You could write that using dispatch-case like so:

(defun time= (x y)
  (dispatch-case ((x time)
                  (y time))
    ((time universal-time)
     (time= x (universal-to-timestamp y)))
    ((universal-time time)
     (time= (universal-to-timestamp x) y))
    ((timestamp timestamp)
     (timestamp= x y))))

Note that this requires only three clauses, where writing it out using nested etypecase-of forms would require four clauses. This is a small gain; but with more subtypes to dispatch on, or more objects, such fallthrough clauses become more useful.

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(dispatch-case-let (&rest bindings) &body clauses)

Like dispatch-case, but establish new bindings for each expression.

For example,

(dispatch-case-let (((x string) (expr1))
                    ((y string) (expr2)))
  ...)

is equivalent to

(let ((x (expr1))
      (y (expr2)))
  (dispatch-case ((x string)
                  (y string))
    ...))

It may be helpful to think of this as a cross between defmethod (where the (variable type) notation is used in the lambda list) and let (which has an obvious macro-expansion in terms of lambda).

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Range

A possibly over-engineered range function. Why is it worth all the fuss? It's used extensively in Serapeum's test suite. The faster range runs, and the less pressure it puts on the garbage collector, the faster the test suite runs.

(range start &optional stop step)

Return a (possibly specialized) vector of real numbers, starting from START.

With three arguments, return the integers in the interval [start,end) whose difference from START is divisible by STEP.

START, STOP, and STEP can be any real number, except that if STOP is greater than START, STEP must be positive, and if START is greater than STOP, STEP must be negative.

The vector returned has the smallest element type that can represent numbers in the given range. E.g. the range [0,256) will usually be represented by a vector of octets, while the range [-10.0,10.0) will be represented by a vector of single floats. The exact representation, however, depends on your Lisp implementation.

STEP defaults to 1.

With two arguments, return all the steps in the interval [start,end).

With one argument, return all the steps in the interval [0,end).

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Generalized Arrays

Some operations on “generalized arrays.”

Functions on generalized arrays are total: they work on arrays, of course, but also on sequences (which are treated as one-dimensional arrays) and atoms (which are treated as zero-dimensional arrays).

A note for array programmers

The semantics of generalized arrays in Serapeum is based on the “array theory” formalism of Trenchard More, as implemented in Nial. Note that this is different from the MOA (“Mathematics of Arrays”) formalism on which direct descendants of APL, such as J, are based.

Nial programmers might be surprised that we rely on the v4, rather than the v6, version of array theory. This is because, in Common Lisps, it is possible to have empty arrays of different element types, and such arrays are not considered equivalent.

(shape array)

Return the shape of ARRAY, a generalized array. For a true array this is equivalent to array-dimensions.

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(reshape shape array &key element-type displace)

Return an array that has the same items as ARRAY, a generalized array, but whose shape is SHAPE.

If the resulting array is smaller than ARRAY, then discard the excess items.

If the resulting array is larger than ARRAY, fill it with the items of ARRAY cyclically.

ELEMENT-TYPE specifies an element type to use for the resulting array if one cannot be inferred from the array itself.

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(ravel array &key displace)

Return the items of ARRAY as a sequence.

Array theory calls this operation list, but the MOA operation is identical and has a more distinctive name.

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(sum array)

Return the sum of all of the elements of ARRAY, a generalized array. Operates pairwise for numerical stability.

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(prod array)

Return the product of all of the elements of ARRAY, a generalized array. Operates pairwise for numerical stability.

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Units

(si-prefix n &key base)

Given a number, return the prefix of the nearest SI unit.

Three values are returned: the long form, the short form, and the multiplying factor.

(si-prefix 1001) => "kilo", "k", 1000d0

BASE can be 1000, 10, 1024, or 2. 1000 is the default, and prefixes start at kilo and milli. Base 10 is mostly the same, except the prefixes centi, deci, deca and hecto are also used. Base 1024 uses the same prefixes as 1000, but with 1024 as the base, as in vulgar file sizes. Base 2 uses the IEC binary prefixes.

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(human-size-formatter size &key flavor space)

Auxiliary function for formatting quantities human-readably. Returns two values: a format control and a list of arguments.

This can be used to integrate the human-readable printing of quantities into larger format control strings using the recursive processing format directive (~?):

(multiple-value-bind (control args)
    (human-size-formatter size)
  (format t "~?" control args))

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(format-human-size stream size &key flavor space)

Write SIZE to STREAM, in human-readable form.

STREAM is interpreted as by format.

If FLAVOR is :si (the default) the base is 1000 and SI prefixes are used.

If FLAVOR is :file, the base is 1024 and SI prefixes are used.

If FLAVOR is :iec, the base is 1024 bytes and IEC prefixes (Ki, Mi, etc.) are used.

If SPACE is non-nil, include a space between the number and the prefix. (Defaults to T if FLAVOR is :si.)

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Exporting

(defclass name supers &body (slots . options))

Like defclass, but implicitly export the name of the class and the names of all accessors (including readers and writers).

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Hooks

(value handler)

NO DOCS!

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(fn handler)

NO DOCS!

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(handler-type handler)

NO DOCS!

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(description handler)

NO DOCS!

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(place handler)

NO DOCS!

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(name handler)

NO DOCS!

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(handlers hook)

NO DOCS!

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(disabled-handlers hook)

NO DOCS!

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(combination hook)

NO DOCS!

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(default-combine-hook hook &rest args)

NO DOCS!

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(combine-hook-until-failure hook &rest args)

NO DOCS!

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(combine-hook-until-success hook &rest args)

NO DOCS!

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(combine-composed-hook hook &rest args)

NO DOCS!

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(find-handler handler-or-name handlers)

Return handler matching HANDLER-OR-NAME in HANDLERS sequence.

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(run-hook-with-args-until-failure hook &rest args)

NO DOCS!

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(run-hook-with-args-until-success hook &rest args)

NO DOCS!

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(disable-hook hook &rest handlers)

NO DOCS!

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(enable-hook hook &rest handlers)

NO DOCS!

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(define-hook hook-type name &key object handlers disabled-handlers combination)

Return a globally-accessible hook. The hook can be accessed with find-hook at (list NAME OBJECT).

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(find-hook name &optional object)

Return the global hook with name NAME associated to OBJECT, if provided. The following examples return different hooks:

  • (find-hook 'foo-hook)
  • (find-hook 'foo-hook 'bar-class)
  • (find-hook 'foo-hook (make-instance 'bar-class))

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(define-hook-type name type)

Define hook class and constructor and the associated handler class. Type must be something like:

(function (string) (values integer t))

A function with name make-handler-NAME will be created. A class with name handler-NAME will be created. The method add-hook is added for the new hook and handler types.

The function make-hook-NAME is created. It is similar to (make-instance 'hook-NAME ...) except that named functions are also accepted. Named functions will be automatically encapsulated with make-handler-NAME.

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(make-handler-void fn &key name place value)

NO DOCS!

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(make-hook-void &key handlers combination)

Make hook and return it. HANDLERS can also contain named functions. Those will automatically be encapsulated with MAKE-HANDLER-VOID.

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(make-hook-string->string &key handlers combination)

Make hook and return it. HANDLERS can also contain named functions. Those will automatically be encapsulated with MAKE-HANDLER-STRING->STRING.

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(make-handler-string->string fn &key name place value)

NO DOCS!

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(make-hook-number->number &key handlers combination)

Make hook and return it. HANDLERS can also contain named functions. Those will automatically be encapsulated with MAKE-HANDLER-NUMBER->NUMBER.

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(make-handler-number->number fn &key name place value)

NO DOCS!

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(make-hook-any &key handlers combination)

Make hook and return it. HANDLERS can also contain named functions. Those will automatically be encapsulated with MAKE-HANDLER-ANY.

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(make-handler-any fn &key name place value)

NO DOCS!

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