“And now for something completely different…”

Lecture 1-2 CS251: Intro to AI/Lisp II

“And now for something completely different…”


Announcements

• Web site is coming up

• Office hours

• Allegro for Windows

• Next few weeks– Today and Tuesday: Lisp

(Micros/Macros/CLOS)– Thursday: Review of 250/350 final, plan on

planning– Tuesday (4/13): Read Chapters 11 & 12


Today’s Topics

• More Lisp– Macros– Micros


Micros

• “Micros are Lisp runtime objects that have dynamic type resolution and support multiple dispatch, but otherwise do very little.” (Guy Steele)

• When should you use micros?– Good when you don’t have much to do– Lots of examples from the reading


A Quick Quiz

• Give two examples where micros are useful

• When should you use micros, and when are macros appropriate instead?

• Do micros support inheritance?


Just Kidding


Lisp, Lisp & More Lisp

• Common Lisp can do a lot for you, but…… what if you need another language?

• Functions just don’t cut it– when is this true?


Extending Lisp

• Lisp is a “programmable programming language” (John Foderaro)

• Build your own language with macros

• Macros let you treat data as code


Functions vs. Macros

• Evaluate all its arguments

• Produce expressions


How Macros Work

• At toplevel, Lisp recognizes macro

• Builds the macro expression inline

• Evaluates the expression inline


The defmacro Jam

• Use defmacro to create new macros (just like defun)

> (defmacro nil! (var)

(list `setq var nil))

NIL!


“Big, Fat, Hairy Deal!” (Garfield)

• Everybody and their dog has a macro language

• How Lisp works– Parser reads Lisp source, sends its output

to the…– Compiler, which compiles it for– Execution

• Parser sends a list of Lisp objects


Macros in the Middle

• Macros work between the parser and compiler– Output a list of Lisp objects, so compiler

doesn’t notice

• An expanding macro has access to all of Lisp

Cool, isn’t it?


Macros, Evaluation and You

• Argument evaluation

• Remember the quote?

> ‘(a b c)(A B C)> (quote (a b c)

• Now we’ve got backquote


Backquote

• Backquote lets you control evaluation– Backquote (`) stops evaluation– Comma (,) starts it up again– Comma-at (,@) starts it with a list

> (setq a 1 b 2 c 3)3> `(a ,b c)???> `(a (b ,c))???


Backquotes & Commas

• One comma balances one backquote

• Don’t worry unless you have nested backquotes

> ‘(a ,(b ,c))


Where’s Waldo?

• Use defmacro to create new macros (just like defun)

• Backquote is used for making lists, but there are other ways

> (defmacro nil! (var)

(list `setq var nil))

NIL!


nif With and Without> (defmacro nif (expr pos zero neg)

(list ‘case

(list ‘truncate (list ‘signum expr))

(list 1 pos)

(list 0 zero)

(list -1 neg)))

> (defmacro nif (expr pos zero neg)

`(case (truncate (signum ,expr))

(1 ,pos)

(0 ,zero)

(-1 ,neg)))


And the macro expansion is...

(case (truncate (signum x))

(1 ‘p)

(0 ‘z)

(-1 ‘n))

(nif x ‘p ‘z ‘n)

expands into...


Back to the Comma

• Turn evaluation back on

> (setq b ‘(1 2 3))

(1 2 3)

> `(a ,b c)

???

> `(a ,@b c)

• Comma-at splices an expression into a list– Insert and remove the ()’s


When is ,@ Handy?

• Macros that take an indeterminate number of arguments– Pass them on to functions or macros that

also take an indeterminate number of arguments

• Example: Code blocks like progn• Remember when?


Splicing Away

• Doing when our way

(defmacro our-when (test &body body)

`(if ,test

(progn

,@body)))


Macro Expansion

• Why is macro expansion special?

> (pprint (macroexpand-1

‘(our-when (able) (laugh) (laughAgain))))

(if (able)

(progn

(laugh)

(laughAgain)))


Macro Headaches

• Variable capture– Macro variable names collide with the

variable names of the expansion context

(defmacro ntimes (n &rest body)

`(do ((x 0) (+ x 1)))

((>= x ,n))

,@body))


• What happens here?

> (let ((x 10))

(ntimes 5

(setf x (+ x 1)))

x)

???


Finding the Problem

• Expand the macro

(defmacro ntimes (n &rest body)

`(do ((x 0) (+ x 1)))

((>= x ,n))

,@body))

(let ((x 10))

(do ((x 0) (+ x 1)))

((>= x 5))

(setf x (+ x 1)))

x)


A Name to Call Our Own

• Generate a new symbol– Use gensym


A Macro Recipe

• Figure out what you’re starting with

• Break it down into small chunks

• Reassemble the chunks into what you need

“And now for something completely different…”

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