Larceny User Manual

There are three main varieties of Larceny.

Native Larceny is the fastest and most convenient variety of Larceny. It compiles directly to native machine code for Intel x86-32 or SPARC microprocessors running Windows, Linux, MacOS X, or Solaris operating systems.

Petit Larceny compiles to C instead of machine code. It runs on most Unix machines, including PowerPC Macintoshes with MacOS X.

Common Larceny compiles to JIT-compiled IL on Microsoft's Common Language Runtime (CLR) or Mono. It provides access to the .NET libraries from Scheme.

The current versions of Larceny are available for download at Larceny's main web page.

Twobit and Larceny are distributed in two forms: as a precompiled binary, or as source code that can be used to reconstruct any of the precompiled binary distributions. Unless you intend to modify Larceny yourself, you do not need to download the source code.

If you are installing or running Common Larceny, please consult the Common Larceny User Manual instead of becoming confused by the instructions in this manual.

Unpack the distribution files with an appropriate command such as one of the following:

tar -xzf larceny-X.Y-bin-native-sparc-solaris.tar.gz
tar -xzf larceny-X.Y-bin-native-ia32-macosx.tar.gz
tar -xzf larceny-X.Y-bin-native-ia32-linux86.tar.gz
tar -xzf larceny-X.Y-bin-native-ia32-win32.tar.gz
tar -xzf larceny-X.Y-bin-petit-stdc-macosx.tar.gz
tar -xzf larceny-X.Y-src.tar.gz

This will create a directory called larceny in your current working directory. Assuming you have unpacked a binary distribution, that directory will contain the following files:

larceny.bin         Run-time system
larceny.heap        Heap image with all libraries, FFI, and compiler
twobit.heap         Heap image with some libraries and compiler
larceny             Shell script that runs larceny.heap
twobit              Shell script that runs twobit.heap
scheme-script       Shell script that runs Scheme scripts
compile-stale       Scheme script that compiles ERR5RS/R6RS libraries
startup.sch         Pathnames for the require and autoload features

If you unpacked the source code there will be many other files and directories, but larceny.bin, larceny.heap, and twobit.heap will not be present. You can reconstruct those files from their source code, but that process requires a working version of Larceny or MzScheme; unless you're porting Larceny or Petit Larceny to a brand new target architecture, it's easier to obtain those three files from a binary distribution of Larceny.

The scripts and heap images are discussed in the following section.

You should decide where you want to install Larceny; let's suppose you want to install it in /usr/local/bin and /usr/local/lib/larceny. Copy larceny, twobit, and scheme-script to /usr/local/bin and edit the definition of LARCENY_PATH at the head of each file to point to the correct directory:

LARCENY_PATH=/usr/local/lib/larceny

Then move or copy larceny.bin, larceny.heap, twobit.heap, startup.sch, and the lib directory to /usr/local/lib/larceny.

You should now be able to run Larceny by typing "larceny" at a Unix prompt. On Windows, type "larceny.bat".

    $ ./larceny
    Larceny v0.96 "Fluoridation" (...)
    > (require 'r6rsmode)
    > (larceny:compile-r6rs-runtime)
    > (exit)

When you start Larceny in R5RS mode (the default), you will be presented with a banner message and the read-eval-print loop's prompt:

    % larceny
    Larceny vX.Y "<version_name>" (MMM DD YYYY HH:MM:SS, ...)
    larceny.heap, built ...

    >

You can enter a Scheme expression at the prompt. After a complete expression has been read, it will be evaluated and its results printed.

By default, Larceny's Twobit compiler makes several assumptions that allow it to generate faster code; for example, the compiler assumes Scheme's standard procedures will not be redefined. To obtain strict conformance to R5RS semantics at the expense of slower code, evaluate the expression

    (compiler-switches 'standard)

For more information on compiler switches, see the section of this user manual devoted to performance.

To interact with Larceny's ERR5RS read/eval/print loop, specify the -err5rs option on Larceny's command line:

    % larceny -err5rs
    Larceny v0.95 "First Safety" (...)
    ERR5RS mode (no libraries have been imported)

Since no libraries have been imported, the only forms you can evaluate are constant literals, variable references (but no variables have been imported!), procedure calls (but no procedure values are accessible!), library definitions, and import forms. The first thing you'll want to do is to import some libraries, such as:

    > (import (rnrs base)
              (rnrs io simple)
              (err5rs records syntactic))

Once you have imported (rnrs base) or a composite library that includes it, you can evaluate definitions and use all other syntax and variables you have imported.

    > (import (err5rs load))

    > (load "lib/R6RS/larceny/benchmarking.sls")
    > (import (larceny benchmarking))
    > (time (vector-for-each + (make-vector 1000000 0)))
    Words allocated: 3095752
    Words reclaimed: 0
    Elapsed time...: 111 ms (User: 104 ms; System: 8 ms)
    Elapsed GC time: 4 ms (CPU: 4 in 8 collections.)

(rnrs base (6))                  ; R6RS chapter 9
(rnrs unicode (6))               ; R6RS library chapter 1
(rnrs bytevectors (6))           ; R6RS library chapter 2
(rnrs lists (6))                 ; R6RS library chapter 3
(rnrs sorting (6))               ; R6RS library chapter 4
(rnrs control (6))               ; R6RS library chapter 5
(rnrs exceptions (6))            ; R6RS library section 7.1
(rnrs conditions (6))            ; R6RS library sections 7.2 and 7.3
(rnrs io ports (6))              ; R6RS library sections 8.1 and 8.2
(rnrs io simple (6))             ; R6RS library sections 8.1 and 8.3
(rnrs files (6))                 ; R6RS library chapter 9
(rnrs programs (6))              ; R6RS library chapter 10
(rnrs arithmetic fixnums (6))    ; R6RS library section 11.2
(rnrs arithmetic flonums (6))    ; R6RS library section 11.3
(rnrs arithmetic bitwise (6))    ; R6RS library section 11.4
(rnrs syntax-case (6))           ; R6RS library chapter 12
(rnrs hashtables (6))            ; R6RS library chapter 13
(rnrs enums)                     ; R6RS library chapter 14
(rnrs (6))                       ; R6RS library chapter 15
(rnrs eval (6))                  ; R6RS library chapter 16
(rnrs mutable-pairs (6))         ; R6RS library chapter 17
(rnrs mutable-strings (6))       ; R6RS library chapter 18
(rnrs r5rs (6))                  ; R6RS library chapter 19

(rnrs records procedural (6))    ; R6RS library section 6.3 (deprecated)
(rnrs records inspection (6))    ; R6RS library section 6.4 (deprecated)
(rnrs records syntactic (6))     ; R6RS library section 6.2 (deprecated)

(err5rs records procedural)      ; ERR5RS records (procedural API)
(err5rs records inspection)      ; ERR5RS records (inspection API)
(err5rs records syntactic)       ; ERR5RS records (syntactic API)
(err5rs load)                    ; ERR5RS load procedure
(rnrs load)                      ; equivalent to (err5rs load)
(larceny load)                   ; extension of (err5rs load)
(larceny compiler)               ; separate compilation for ERR5RS/R6RS
(larceny benchmarking)           ; timing facilities
(larceny records printer)        ; custom printing of records
(r5rs)                           ; approximates the R5RS top level
(explicit-renaming)              ; macro system with explicit renaming

To execute a top-level R6RS program that is contained within a file named pgm, type:

    larceny -r6rs -program pgm

The -program option can be omitted, in which case Larceny will read the top-level program from standard input:

    larceny -r6rs < pgm

If you omit the -program option and do not redirect standard input, then Larceny will wait patiently for you to type a complete top-level program into standard input, terminating it with an end-of-file.

You probably don't want to do that. Had you wanted to type R6RS code at Larceny, you'd be using ERR5RS mode instead.

On most Unix systems (including MacOS X and Linux), Larceny's scheme-script will execute Scheme scripts as described in R6RS non-normative appendix D, with or without the optional script header. To make Scheme scripts executable in their own right, without executing scheme-script directly, add Larceny's root directory to your path as described in doc/HOWTO-INSTALL.

Suppose, for example, that /home/myself/hello is an R6RS Scheme script whose first line is the optional script header (#!/usr/bin/env scheme-script). If you do not have execute permission for this script, or Larceny's root directory is not in your path, you can still run the script from Larceny's root directory as follows:

    % ./scheme-script /home/myself/hello

If you have execute permission for the script, and Larceny's root directory is in your path, you can also run the script as follows:

    % /home/myself/hello

If, in addition, the directory that contains the script is in your path, you can run the script as follows:

    % hello

Suppose hello.sch contains the following R5RS code:

    (display "Hello world!")
    (newline)
    (exit)

You can run hello.sch as a script by executing Larceny as follows:

    % larceny -nobanner -- hello.sch

You can redirect Larceny's standard input, in which case you may want to eliminate the herald announcement and the read/eval/print loop's prompt:

    % larceny -nobanner -- -e "(begin (herald #f) (repl-prompt values))" \
              < hello.sch

For an explanation of why that works, which may suggest other creative uses of Larceny, ask for help:

    % larceny -help

In R6RS modes, errors should result in an error message followed by a clean exit from the program, but some errors may enter the debugger; this is a known bug.

If your program encounters an error in an interactive mode (R5RS or ERR5RS), it will enter the debugger; this is believed to be a feature.

Despite its crudity, and to some extent because of it, Larceny's debugger works at least as well with optimized compiled code as with interpreted code.

If you type a question mark at the debugger prompt, the debugger will print a help message. That message is more helpful if you understand the Twobit compiler and Larceny's internal representations and invariants, but this manual is not the place to explain those things.

The debugging context is saved so you can exit the debugger and re-enter it from the main read/eval/print loop's prompt:

    > (debug)

The debugger is pretty much a prototype; you don't need to tell us how bad it is.

By default, Larceny's Twobit compiler assumes that Scheme's standard procedures will not be redefined, which allows the compiler to generate inline code for many calls to standard procedures. If you want to be able to redefine standard procedures, then you should evaluate the expression

        (integrate-procedures #f)

After this expression has been evaluated, the compiler will generate slower code.

To make the compiler generate faster code, you can promise not to redefine standard procedures and not to redefine any top-level procedure while it is running. To make this promise, evaluate

        (compiler-switches 'fast-safe)

To view the current settings of Twobit's numerous compiler switches, evaluate

        (compiler-switches)

All of Twobit's compiler switches are procedures whose setting can be changed by passing the new value of the switch as an argument.

For more information, evaluate

        (help)

By default, Larceny recognizes several Larceny-specific flags of the form permitted by the R6RS. The flag you are most likely to encounter represents one of Larceny's unspecified values:

    #!unspecified

Certain other flags have special meanings to Larceny's read and get-datum procedures. They are described below.

By default, Larceny is case-sensitive. This global default can be overridden by specifying —foldcase or —nofoldcase on Larceny's command line, or by changing the value of Larceny's case-sensitive? parameter.

The case-sensitivity of a particular textual input port is affected by reading one of the following flags from the port using the read or get-datum procedures:

    #!fold-case
    #!no-fold-case

The #!fold-case flag enables case-folding on data read from the port by the read and get-datum procedures, while the #!no-fold-case flag disables case-folding. The behavior established by one of these flags extends to the next flag read from the port by read or get-datum.

Both #!fold-case and #!no-fold-case evaluate to an unspecified value. To obtain the effect of one of these flags while treating it as a comment, place #; in front of the flag.

When a port is first opened, the Larceny-specific lexical extensions that are accepted on the port are determined by Larceny's lexical parameters.

The following flags change the case-sensitivity and lexical extensions on the specific port from which they are read:

    #!r6rs         ; implies #!no-fold-case, negates other flags
    #!r5rs         ; implies #!fold-case, #!err5rs
    #!err5rs       ; allows Larceny-specific extensions
    #!larceny      ; implies #!no-fold-case, #!err5rs

The #!r6rs flag is a comment, while all of Larceny's other flags evaluate to an unspecified value. To obtain the effect of a flag other than #!r6rs while treating it as a comment, place #; in front of the flag.

When given no argument, these parameters return the current default for some aspect of the lexical syntax that will be accepted on newly created ports. When given an argument, these procedures change the default as specified by the argument.

Procedure case-sensitive?

(case-sensitive? [boolean]) => boolean

Determines whether newly created textual ports default to case-sensitive.

Procedure read-larceny-weirdness?

(read-larceny-weirdness? [boolean]) => boolean

Determines whether newly created textual ports allow Larceny's usual extensions to R5RS lexical syntax. This parameter also determines whether newly created ports allow # as an insignificant digit; this is required by the R5RS, but disallowed by the R6RS.

Procedure read-traditional-weirdness?

(read-traditional-weirdness? [boolean]) => boolean

Determines whether newly created textual ports allow certain lexical extensions that are deprecated in Larceny. These extensions include symbols enclosed by vertical bars and read-time evaluation.

For the current semantics of these parameters, please consult the Larceny developers' web page that describes Larceny's lexical syntax.

In Larceny, file names generally follow Unix conventions, even on Windows. The following suffixes have special meanings to some components of Larceny.

.sls is the preferred suffix for files that consist of ERR5RS/R6RS-compatible library definitions.

.sch is the preferred suffix for files that contain R5RS source code.

.scm is an alternative suffix for files that contain R5RS source code.

.slfasl is the suffix for files that contain the pre-compiled form of ERR5RS/R6RS-compatible code.

.fasl is the suffix for files that contain the pre-compiled form of R5RS code.

.mal is the preferred suffix for files that contain MacScheme assembly language in symbolic form.

.lap is the suffix for files that contain MacScheme assembly language.

.lop is the suffix for files that contain machine code segments in the form expected by Larceny's heap linker.

.heap is the suffix for files that contain an executable heap image (must be combined with the larceny.bin runtime).

Larceny's root directory should contain the following files:

    larceny
    twobit
    scheme-script
    larceny.bin
    larceny.heap
    twobit.heap
    startup.sch

The following subdirectories are also essential for correct operation of some features of some modes in some varieties of Larceny:

    include
    lib
    lib/Base
    lib/Debugger
    lib/Ffi
    lib/MzScheme
    lib/R6RS
    lib/SRFI
    lib/Standard
    lib/TeachPacks

The include subdirectory is used when compiling files with Petit Larceny.

The startup.sch file tells Larceny's require procedure to search some of the lib subdirectories for libraries that are loaded dynamically.

The R6RS does not specify any mapping from library names to files or to other locations at which the code for a library might be found. As R6RS non-normative appendix E puts it:

In other words, implementations are allowed to extend the R6RS with arbitrary mechanisms for resolving references to imported libraries, but R6RS programs that rely on such mechanisms are not portable. In particular, R6RS libraries are not portable.

Larceny provides four distinct Larceny-specific mechanisms that non-portable R6RS programs can use to import or to define libraries:

ERR5RS programs may use any of those four mechanisms, and may also use a fifth mechanism: An ERR5RS program can be written as a little configuration program that loads the program's libraries from files before any libraries are imported. This fifth mechanism is portable, but is not available to R6RS programs.

Suppose Larceny's -path option is used to specify a certain directory, and the program imports a nonstandard library whose name is of the form (name1 name2 … lastname). Larceny will search for that library in the following files:

The search starts with the first of those file names, continues with the following file names in order, and ends when a file with one of those names is found. The imported library must be one of the libraries defined within the first file found by this search, since the search is not continued after that first file is found (except as noted in the next paragraph).

If the search ends by finding a file whose name ends with .slfasl, then Larceny checks to see whether there is a file in the same directory with the same root name but ending with .sls instead of .slfasl. If the .sls file has been modified since the .slfasl file was last modified, then a warning is printed and the .sls file is loaded instead of the .slfasl file. Otherwise the .slfasl file is loaded.

In R5RS mode, Larceny's -path option may be used to specify a directory to be searched by the require procedure, which takes a single symbol libname as its argument. The require procedure will search for the following files in every directory that is part of the current require path, starting with the directory specified by the -path option:

These files are expected to contain R5RS code, not library definitions. Otherwise the search proceeds much the same as when searching for an ERR5RS/R6RS library.

Procedure require

(require libname)

libname must be a symbol that names an R5RS-compatible library within the current require path.

If the library has not already been loaded, then it is located and loaded. If the library is found and loaded successfully, then require returns true; otherwise an error is signalled.

If the library has already been loaded, then require returns false without loading the library a second time.

Procedure current-require-path

(current-require-path [stringlist]) => stringlist

The optional argument is a list of directory names (without slashes at the end) that should be searched by require and (in ERR5RS/R6RS modes) by Larceny's autoload feature. Returns the list of directory names that will be searched.

On Unix machines, the most convenient way to compile a group of ERR5RS/R6RS libraries and top-level programs is to use the compile-stale script in Larceny's root directory. If Larceny's root directory is in your execution path, then there are just two steps:

For example:

    % cd lib/R6RS
    % compile-stale

On non-Unix machines, you can accomplish the same thing using Larceny's ERR5RS mode and the (larceny compiler) library:

    % pushd lib\R6RS
    % ..\..\larceny.bat -err5rs
    Larceny v0.96 "Fluoridation"
    ERR5RS mode (no libraries have been imported)

    > (import (larceny compiler))

    > (compile-stale-libraries)

To compile individual files, use the compile-file or compile-library procedures that are exported by (larceny compiler).

Procedure compile-file

(compile-file sourcefile)

Compiles sourcefile, which must be a string naming a file that contains R5RS source code. If faslfile is supplied as a second argument, then it must be a string naming the file that will contain the compiled code; otherwise the name of the compiled file is obtained from sourcefile by replacing the ".sch" or ".scm" suffix with ".fasl".

For ERR5RS/R6RS libraries and top-level programs, see above.

This section describes the (err5rs load) library.

Procedure load

(load filename)

Loads ERR5RS code from filename, evaluating each form as though it had been entered at the interactive read/eval/print loop.

When a procedure is said to be equivalent to an R6RS procedure, the equivalence holds only when all arguments have the properties required of them by the R6RS specification. ERR5RS does not mandate R6RS exception semantics for programs that violate the specification.

    <definition>
      -> <record type definition>           ; addition to 7.1.6 in R5RS

    <record type definition>
      -> (define-record-type <type spec>
           <constructor spec>
           <predicate spec>
           <field spec> ...)

    <type spec>  -> <type name>
                 -> (<type name> <parent>)

    <constructor spec>
                 -> #f
                 -> #t
                 -> <constructor name>
                 -> (<constructor name> <field name> ...)

    <predicate spec>
                 -> #f
                 -> #t
                 -> <predicate name>

    <field spec> -> <field name>
                 -> (<field name>)
                 -> (<field name> <accessor name>)
                 -> (<field name> <accessor name> <mutator name>)

    <parent>           -> <expression>

    <type name>        -> <identifier>
    <constructor name> -> <identifier>
    <predicate name>   -> <identifier>
    <accessor name>    -> <identifier>
    <mutator name>     -> <identifier>
    <field name>       -> <identifier>

ERR5RS and R6RS modes support all procedures and syntaxes exported by the (rnrs base) library.

Larceny's R5RS mode does not support library, import, or identifier-syntax.

The following deviations from R6RS semantics are known bugs that should be fixed in a future release.

In Larceny v0.96, the imaginary part of an inexact real is inexact. Some of the algebraic and transcendental functions do not yet behave as specified by the R6RS, especially with regard to branch cuts.

The number->string and string->number procedures do not yet support mantissa widths.

The semantics of quasiquote, let-syntax, and letrec-syntax differ between the R5RS and the R6RS. Larceny's R5RS mode still supports the R5RS semantics.

All of Larceny's modes support all features of the (rnrs unicode) library.

Larceny v0.96 conforms to The Unicode Standard, Version 5.0.

ERR5RS and R6RS modes support all procedures and syntaxes exported by (rnrs bytevectors), but the endianness syntax is deprecated because it is redundant with quote. Larceny's R5RS mode does not support endianness.

In Larceny, any symbol names a supported endianness. The symbols big and little have their expected meanings. All other symbols mean (native-endianness) with respect to integer operations, but mean the opposite of (native-endianness) with respect to IEEE-754 operations. For string operations, the endianness must be the symbol big or the symbol little. All of these extensions are permitted by the R6RS standard.

Larceny's utf16->string and utf32->string accept one, two, or three arguments. The R6RS specification of these procedures does not allow them to accept a single argument, but that is believed to be an error in the R6RS.

All of Larceny's modes support all features of the (rnrs lists) library.

All of Larceny's modes support all features of the (rnrs sorting) library.

All of Larceny's modes support all features of the (rnrs control) library.

ERR5RS and R6RS modes support all procedures and syntaxes exported by (rnrs records procedural), (rnrs records inspection), and (rnrs records syntactic).

Those libraries are deprecated, however; the make-record-constructor-descriptor procedure does not simplify unusually complex cases enough to justify the complexity it adds to typical cases, and the entire syntactic layer is gratuitously incompatible with the procedural layer.

Larceny's R5RS mode supports all features of the deprecated (rnrs records procedural) and (rnrs records inspection) libraries. R5RS mode does not support (rnrs records syntactic).

All of Larceny's modes support all features of the (err5rs records procedural) and (err5rs records inspection) libraries. ERR5RS and R6RS modes also support the (err5rs records syntactic) library.

The record definition syntax of SRFI 9 is a proper subset of the syntax provided by the (err5rs records syntactic) library. In R5RS mode, SRFI 9 can be loaded dynamically using the require procedure:

    > (require 'srfi-9)

We recommend the ERR5RS and/or SRFI 9 libraries be used instead of the corresponding R6RS libraries.

All of Larceny's modes support all features of the (rnrs exceptions) and (rnrs conditions) libraries.

ERR5RS and R6RS modes support all names exported by the (rnrs io ports), (rnrs io simple), and (rnrs files) libraries.

The buffer-mode, eol-style, and error-handling-mode syntaxes are deprecated because they are redundant with quote. These deprecated syntaxes may be provided in the form of procedures rather than syntax, but this deviation from R6RS semantics cannot be detected by portable R6RS programs.

Larceny's R5RS mode supports all non-deprecated features of those libraries.

Larceny supports four distinct buffer modes: none, line, datum, and block. The R6RS requires the buffer-mode syntax to raise an exception for the datum buffer mode, which is the buffer mode Larceny uses for interactive output ports.

In Larceny, any symbol names a supported end-of-line style. All end-of-line and error-handling-mode symbols whose meanings are not described by the R6RS have locale-dependent meanings, which is an extension permitted by the R6RS standard.

Although Larceny supports the UTF-16 codec, it is not really useful on Windows machines (where it should be most useful) because Larceny's low-level file system mimics a byte-oriented Unix file system even on Windows. This problem should be addressed in some future version of Larceny.

The most up-to-date list of known deviations from R6RS io semantics can be found on the web page that describes the current status of Larceny's R6RS-compatible mode.

ERR5RS and R6RS modes support the (rnrs programs) library.

Larceny's R5RS mode provides the exit procedure but not the command-line procedure of that library. Larceny's traditional command-line-arguments procedure can be used to implement an approximation to command-line. For a definition, see lib/R6RS/rnrs/programs.sls.

All of Larceny's modes support all features of the (rnrs arithmetic fixnums), (rnrs arithmetic flonums), and (rnrs arithmetic bitwise) libraries.

ERR5RS and R6RS modes support the (rnrs syntax-case) library. Larceny's R5RS mode does not.

All of Larceny's modes support all features of the (rnrs hashtables) library.

ERR5RS and R6RS modes support the (rnrs enums) library. Larceny's R5RS mode provides all of the procedures exported by (rnrs enums) but does not provide the define-enumeration syntax.

ERR5RS and R6RS modes are believed to support the (rnrs eval) library, but the environment procedure has not been tested. Larceny's R5RS mode provides an R5RS-compatible eval procedure, not an R6RS-compatible eval procedure, and does not provide the environment procedure.

All of Larceny's modes support all features of the (rnrs mutable-pairs) and (rnrs mutable-strings) libraries.

All of Larceny's modes support all features of the (rnrs r5rs) library.

The (larceny load) library exports both the load procedure of (err5rs load) and Larceny's require procedure.

In Larceny's ERR5RS mode, the load and require procedures can load R5RS libraries and programs as well as ERR5RS/R6RS libraries.

The (larceny compiler) library exports the load and require procedures of (larceny load), the current-require-path procedure, and the compile-file, compile-library, and compile-stale-libraries procedures described below.

These procedures can be used to compile ERR5RS/R6RS libraries and top-level programs before they are imported or executed. This is especially important for Petit Larceny, which would otherwise use an interpreter. For native Larceny, whose just-in-time compiler generates native machine code as source libraries and programs are loaded, imported, or executed, the main advantage of separate compilation is that compiled libraries and programs will load much faster than source libraries and programs.

The main disadvantage of separate compilation is that compiled libraries and programs go stale when their source code is changed or when a library on which they depend is changed or recompiled. Stale libraries and programs can be dangerously inconsistent with libraries on which they depend, so Larceny checks for staleness and refuses to execute a stale library or program. The compile-stale-libraries procedure provides a convenient way to recompile stale libraries and programs.

(compile-file sourcefile [slfaslfile])

Compiles sourcefile, which must be a string naming a file that contains source code for one or more ERR5RS/R6RS libraries or a top-level program. If slfaslfile is supplied as a second argument, then it must be a string naming the file that will contain the compiled code; otherwise the name of the compiled file is obtained from sourcefile by replacing the ".sls" suffix with ".slfasl".

Procedure compile-library

(compile-library sourcefile [slfaslfile])

Compiles sourcefile, which must be a string naming a file that contains source code for one or more ERR5RS/R6RS libraries. Apart from its unwillingness to compile top-level programs, compile-library behaves the same as compile-file above.

Procedure compile-stale-libraries

(compile-stale-libraries [changedfile])

If no argument is supplied, then all ".sls" files that lie within the current directory or a subdirectory are recompiled.

If changedfile is supplied, then it must be a string giving the absolute pathname of a file. (In typical usage, changedfile is a source file that has been modified, making it necessary to recompile all files that depend upon it.) Compiles all ERR5RS/R6RS library files that lie within the same directory as changedfile or a subdirectory, and have not yet been compiled or whose compiled files are older than changedfile.

The (larceny benchmarking) library exports the time syntax and run-benchmark procedure described below.

Syntax time

(time expression)

Evaluates expression and returns its result after printing approximations to the storage allocated and time taken during evaluation of expression.

    > (time (fib 30))
    Words allocated: 0
    Words reclaimed: 0
    Elapsed time...: 49 ms (User: 48 ms; System: 0 ms)
    Elapsed GC time: 0 ms (CPU: 0 in 0 collections.)
    832040

(run-benchmark name iterations thunk predicate)

Given the name of a benchmark, the number of iterations to be performed, a zero-argument procedure thunk that runs the benchmark, and a unary predicate that checks the result of thunk, prints approximations to the storage allocated and time taken by iterations calls to thunk.

    > (run-benchmark "fib30"
                     100
                     (lambda () (fib 30))
                     (lambda (x) (= x 832040)))

    --------------------------------------------------------
    fib30
    Words allocated: 0
    Words reclaimed: 0
    Elapsed time...: 4828 ms (User: 4824 ms; System: 4 ms)
    Elapsed GC time: 0 ms (CPU: 0 in 0 collections.)

The (larceny records printer) library exports the two procedures described below. These procedures can be used to override Larceny's usual printing of records and opaque types that were defined using the records libraries.

Procedure rtd-printer

(rtd-printer rtd) => maybe-procedure

Given a record type descriptor, returns its custom print procedure, or returns false if the rtd has no custom print procedure.

Procedure rtd-printer-set!

(rtd-printer-set! rtd printer)

Given a record type descriptor rtd and a printer for instances of that rtd, installs printer as a custom print procedure for rtd. The printer should be a procedure that, given an instance of the rtd and a textual output port, writes a representation of the instance to the port.

Larceny provides Unicode strings with R6RS semantics.

The string-downcase and string-upcase procedures perform Unicode-compatible case folding, which can result in a string whose length is different from that of the original.

Larceny may still provide string-downcase! and string-upcase! procedures, but they are deprecated.

A bytevector is a data structure that stores bytes — exact 8-bit unsigned integers. Bytevectors are useful in constructing system interfaces and other low-level programming. In Larceny, many bytevector-like structures — bignums, for example — are implemented in terms of a lower-level bytevector-like data type. The operations on generic bytevector-like structures are particularly fast but useful largely in code that manipulates Larceny's data representations.

The (rnrs bytevectors) library now provides a large set of procedures that, in Larceny, are defined using the procedures described below.

Integrable procedure make-bytevector

(make-bytevector length) => bytevector

(make-bytevector length fill) => bytevector

Returns a bytevector of the desired length. If no second argument is given, then the bytevector has not been initialized and most likely contains garbage.

Operations on bytevector structures

(bytevector? obj) => boolean

(bytevector-length bytevector) => integer

(bytevector-ref bytevector offset) => byte

(bytevector-set! bytevector offset byte) => unspecified

(bytevector-equal? bytevector1 bytevector2) => boolean

(bytevector-fill! bytevector byte) => unspecified

(bytevector-copy bytevector) => bytevector

These procedures do what you expect. All are integrable, except bytevector-equal? and bytevector-copy. The bytevector-equal? name is deprecated, since the R6RS calls it bytevector=?.

Operations on bytevector-like structures

(bytevector-like? obj) => boolean

(bytevector-like-length bytevector) => integer

(bytevector-like-ref bytevector offset) => byte

(bytevector-like-set! bytevector offset byte) => unspecified

(bytevector-like-equal? bytevector1 bytevector2) => boolean

(bytevector-like-copy bytevector) => bytevector

A bytevector-like structure is a low-level representation for indexed arrays of uninterpreted bytes. Bytevector-like structures are used to represent types such as bignums and flonums.

There is no way to construct a "generic" bytevector-like structure; use the constructors for specific bytevector-like types.

The bytevector-like operations operate on all bytevector-like structures. All are integrable, except bytevector-like-equal? and bytevector-like-copy. All are deprecated because they violate abstraction barriers and make your code representation-independent; they are useful mainly to Larceny developers, who might otherwise be tempted to write some low-level operations in C or assembly language.

Procedure vector-copy

(vector-copy vector) => vector

Returns a shallow copy of its argument.

Operations on vector-like structures

(vector-like? object) => boolean

(vector-like-length vector-like) => fixnum

(vector-like-ref vector-like k) => object

(vector-like-set! vector-like k object) => unspecified

A vector-like structure is a low-level representation for indexed arrays of Scheme objects. Vector-like structures are used to represent types such as vectors, records, symbols, and ports.

There is no way to construct a "generic" vector-like structure; use the constructors for specific data types.

The vector-like operations operate on all vector-like structures. All are integrable. All are deprecated because they violate abstraction barriers and make your code representation-independent; they are useful mainly to Larceny developers, who might otherwise be tempted to write some low-level operations in C or assembly language.

Operations on procedures

(make-procedure length) => procedure

(procedure-length procedure) => fixnum

(procedure-ref procedure offset) => object

(procedure-set! procedure offset object) => unspecified

These procedures operate on the representations of procedures and allow user programs to construct, inspect, and alter procedures.

Procedure procedure-copy

(procedure-copy procedure) => procedure

Returns a shallow copy of the procedure.

The procedures above are deprecated because they violate abstraction barriers and make your code representation-independent; they are useful mainly to Larceny developers, who might otherwise be tempted to write some low-level operations in C or assembly language.

The rest of this section describes some procedures that reach through abstraction barriers in a more controlled way to extract heuristic information from procedures for debugging purposes.

The procedures that extract heuristic information from procedures are permitted to return any result whatsoever. If the type of a result is not among those listed below, then the result represents an implementation-dependent extension to this interface, which may safely be interpreted as though no information were available from the procedure. Otherwise the result is to be interpreted as described below.

Procedure procedure-arity

(procedure-arity proc)

Returns information about the arity of proc. If the result is #f, then no information is available. If the result is an exact non-negative integer k, then proc requires exactly k arguments. If the result is an inexact non-negative integer n, then proc requires n or more arguments. If the result is a pair, then it is a list of non-negative integers, each of which indicates a number of arguments that will be accepted by proc; the list is not necessarily exhaustive.

Procedure procedure-documentation-string

(procedure-documentation-string proc)

Returns general information about proc. If the result is #f, then no information is available. If the result is a string, then it is to be interpreted as a "documentation string" (see Common Lisp).

Procedure procedure-name

(procedure-name proc)

Returns information about the name of proc. If the result is #f, then no information is available. If the result is a symbol or string, then it represents a name. If the result is a pair, then it is a list of symbols and/or strings representing a path of names; the first element represents an outer name and the last element represents an inner name.

Procedure procedure-source-file

(procedure-source-file proc)

Returns information about the name of a file that contains the source code for proc. If the result is #f, then no information is available. If the result is a string, then the string is the name of a file.

Procedure procedure-source-position

(procedure-source-position proc)

Returns information about the position of the source code for proc whithin the source file specified by procedure-source-file. If the result is #f, then no information is available. If the result is an exact integer k, then k characters precede the opening parenthesis of the source code for proc within that source file.

Procedure procedure-expression

(procedure-expression proc)

Returns information about the source code for proc. If the result is #f, then no information is available. If the result is a pair, then it is a lambda expression in the traditional representation of a list.

Procedure procedure-environment

(procedure-environment proc)

Returns information about the environment of proc. If the result is #f, then no information is available. In any case the result may be passed to any of the environment inquiry functions.

Notes on the Larceny implementation

Twobit does not yet produce data for all of these functions, so some of them always return #f.

The (rnrs lists) library now provides a set of procedures that may supersede some of the procedures described below. If one of Larceny's procedures duplicates the semantics of an R6RS procedure whose name is different, then Larceny's name is deprecated.

Procedure append!

(append! list1 list2 … obj) => object

append! destructively appends its arguments, which must be lists, and returns the resulting list. The last argument can be any object. The argument lists are appended by changing the cdr of the last pair of each argument except the last to point to the next argument.

Procedure every?

(every? procedure list1 list2 …) => object

every? applies procedure to each element tuple of list_s in first-to-last order, and returns #f as soon as _procedure returns #f. If procedure does not return #f for any element tuple of list_s, then the value returned by _procedure for the last element tuple of _list_s is returned.

Procedure last-pair

(last-pair list-structure) => pair

last-pair returns the last pair of the list structure, which must be a sequence of pairs linked through the cdr fields.

Procedure list-copy

(list-copy list-copy) => list

list-copy makes a shallow copy of the list and returns that copy.

Procedure remove

(remove key list) => list

(remq key list) => list

(remv key list) => list

(remp pred? list) => list

Each of these procedures returns a new list which contains all the elements of list in the original order, except that those elements of the original list that were equal to key (or that satisfy pred?) are not in the new list. Remove uses equal? as the equivalence predicate; remq uses eq?, and remv uses eqv?.

Procedure remove!

(remove! key list) => list

(remq! key list) => list

(remv! key list) => list

(remp! pred? list) => list

These procedures are like remove, remq, remv, and remp, except they modify list instead of returning a fresh list.

Procedure reverse!

(reverse! list) => list

reverse! destructively reverses its argument and returns the reversed list.

Procedure some?

(some? procedure list1 list2 …) => object

some? applies procedure to each element tuple of list_s in first-to-last order, and returns the first non-false value returned by _procedure. If procedure does not return a true value for any element tuple of _list_s, then some? returns #f.

The (rnrs sorting) library now provides a small set of procedures that supersede most of the procedures described below. All of the procedures described below are therefore deprecated.

Procedures sort and sort!

(sort list less?) => list

(sort vector less?) => vector

(sort! list less?) => list