[racket] macro expansion function in Scheme

From: Matthias Felleisen (matthias at ccs.neu.edu)
Date: Tue Jul 12 10:07:40 EDT 2011

On Jul 12, 2011, at 9:32 AM, Bas Steunebrink wrote:

> Wow, it was right under my nose! :-) Thanks!
> 
> So I've been playing around with expand but it does not always return what I'd expect, particularly with making fresh variables. For example:
> 
> > (define-syntax m
>    (syntax-rules ()
>      ((_ x)
>       (lambda (x) (lambda (y) x)))))
> > (((m y) #t) #f)
> #t   ; OK
> > (syntax->datum (expand '(m y)))
> (#%expression (lambda (y) (lambda (y) y)))
> > (((lambda (y) (lambda (y) y)) #t) #f)
> #f   ; So using the result of expand and syntax->datum gives something different
> 
> When expanding (m y), shouldn't at least one of the 2 y's be made fresh?


The following experiment produces a bit more insight: 

> (((eval (expand '(m y))) #t) #f)
#t

The result of expand compiles to the correct closure. 

So the docs for syntax->datum are dead serious when they say that
it "returns a datum by stripping the lexical information, source 
location information, properties, and tamper status from stx."

-- Matthias




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