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From: Per Bothner <per@bothner.com>
To: Panicz Maciej Godek <godek.maciek@gmail.com>, kawa@sourceware.org
Subject: Re: "define is only allowed in a <body>"
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2022 15:57:07 -0800	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <eedb77bf-5b49-1b09-0bfb-52574382deaa@bothner.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAMFYt2bkHOo6kCO3U=_9Z6XMR4-o__nGLFHq1Z==OG_QTe6_+w@mail.gmail.com>

I don't know the actual problem, but the following explains the error message.

Syntax expansion (translating of S-expressions to Expression objects)
is done in two interleaved phases:

(1) The "scan" phase is primarily about collecting the set of names
bound in a <body>.   So given something like:
   (define name expr)
it will make a note of 'name' but it will leave 'expr' for the next phase.

(2) The rewrite phase expands a single expression in the context of existing
definitions.

Macro expansion may happen in either phase, as needed.
For example 'define' is actually a macro that expands into the more primitive '%define'.
Forms at the the top-level of a <body> have to be expanded at scan time -
thus 'define' gets expanded at scan time to '%define' which then gets further processed.

The 'let' form does not define new non-local identifiers, so 'let' is processed at
rewrite time - and does not need any processing at scan time.

'define' (or rather '%define') needs processing at both scan and rewrite times:
scan makes a note of the defined name, and converts it to a simpler form
that is later processed by rewrite.

It is an error for 'define' to appear in expression context, such as the following:
   (list (define x 10) x)
That is what the error message means.  Kawa will complain if rewrite is asked to
process a 'define' (or '%define') form that has not been previously processed by scan.

Basically, one of your macros expands to a 'define' in expression context.
-- 
	--Per Bothner
per@bothner.com   http://per.bothner.com/

      reply	other threads:[~2022-01-27 23:57 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 2+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2022-01-27 22:58 Panicz Maciej Godek
2022-01-27 23:57 ` Per Bothner [this message]

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