[plt-scheme] How to create a macro that's in expression position?

At Mon, 31 Mar 2003 00:33:22 -0500, "Agnes Schemelt" wrote:
> Reading through the MzScheme language manual, I found in chapter 12 a 
> statement that says you can create macros that are in expression position. I 
> take this to mean that, for example, a macro TRIGGER can be invoked with 
> this code:
>          ( 1  TRIGGER 4 )
> 
> What does the macro definition look like?
> 
> The best I could come up with is this, which doesn't work:
>    (define-syntax (TRIGGER stx)
>       (syntax-case stx ()
>          (( x TRIGGER y) ...etc..)
>        )
>     )
> 
> What's weird is that if you could get it to work, the syntax object for a 
> macro in expression position is not (identifier ...) but only the identifier 
> itself, which doesn't seem useful. How do you get the rest?

I don't believe that this is possible. I believe that the text you read
only refers to identifier macros. That is, you can write a macro for
trigger in this code:

  (1 trigger 4)

but it would only be allowed to change the middle part of that
expression (where the word trigger is), not the 1 and the 4.

> It would be wonderful if it truly worked. And I have a suspicion
> that this is what's behind the infix syntax:
>          (if (a . < . b) ..etc..)


The infix syntax is implemented at the reader level and is a different
mechanism. So, for instance, the structural equality predicate, equal?
cannot tell the difference between these two:

  (equal? '(a b c) '(b . a . c))

If you were to take the car of the second argument, in fact, you'd get
the symbol 'a, not the symbol 'b.

Sorry if that's disappointing!

Robby