Arc Forumnew | comments | leaders | submitlogin
2 points by eds 6136 days ago | link | parent

Even CL's special keyword syntax doesn't save you from optional and keyword confusion:

  [1]> (defun test (a &optional (b 'b) (c 'c) &key (d 'd))
         (list a b c d))
  TEST
  [2]> (test 1 :d :e)
  (1 :D :E D)
Optional parameters always bind first in CL, and I believe dsb is written to mimic that behavior.

Having all parameters be keyword arguments as well might be interesting, but it wouldn't avoid optional/keyword confusion.



1 point by are 6136 days ago | link

> Having all parameters be keyword arguments as well might be interesting, but it wouldn't avoid optional/keyword confusion.

Why not?

Let's say you have a function with 3 standard args followed by 2 opt args. So you have 5 args, all keyable on the symbol you give them in the def.

Let's further say that in a call to this function, I key the middle standard arg (#2 in the def) plus the first opt arg (#4 in the def) and also, I omit the second opt arg (#5 in the def). So, I'm supplying two standard args apart from the two args I'm keying. Then the function call parser would know, after identifying the 2 keyed args and matching them to positions #2 and #4 in the def, that the first non-key arg supplied corresponds to position #1 in the def, the second non-key arg supplied corresponds to position #3 in the def, and that an arg for position #5 in the def is missing, leading to the usage of the default value for this opt arg.

This would even work when you want to raise an error for a non-supplied, non-opt arg.

Wouldn't this work quite intuitively (keying an arg when calling a function "lifts it out" of the normal "vanillas then optionals" argument sequence, shortening that sequence, put keeping a well-defined order for it)? (You would need special syntax for keys in this proposal. My suggestion is a colon appended to the arg symbol, rather than prepended, like in CL.)

Can someone give a counterexample if they think this somehow wouldn't work?

&rest args are left as an exercise for the reader :-)

-----