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Issue DEFTYPE-KEY Writeup

Issue:         DEFTYPE-KEY

References: CLtL p.50

Related issues: DEFSTRUCT-CONSTRUCTOR-KEY-MIXTURE

Category: CLARIFICATION/ADDITION

Edit history: 29-Apr-90, Version 1 by Moon

30-Apr-90, Version 2 by Moon (update current practice)

4-May-90, Version 3 by Moon (update from comment received)

9-May-90, Version 4 by Moon (revise according to comments

received. Specifically, remove references to

&ENVIRONMENT, take no stand on destructuring, and

correct the current practice.)

Problem description:

CLtL p.50 only mentions &OPTIONAL and &REST as allowed lambda-list

keywords in DEFTYPE. It doesn't say whether &KEY is allowed too.

This is Symbolics issue #18.

Proposal (DEFTYPE-KEY:ALLOW):

Allow &OPTIONAL, &REST, &KEY, &ALLOW-OTHER-KEYS, and &AUX in the

lambda-list of DEFTYPE.

Clarify that unsupplied keyword arguments default to *, not NIL, the same

as unsupplied optional arguments, if no initform is specified in the

lambda-list. &AUX parameters are initialized to NIL if no initform is

specified.

Examples:

(deftype xarray (&key dimensions (rank '* rank-p) element-type)

(check-type rank (or (member *) (integer 0 *)))

(check-type dimensions (or (member *) list))

`(array ,element-type

,(if rank-p rank dimensions)))

(check-type z (xarray :rank 2 :element-type double-float))

(define-presentation-type command (&key (command-table *command-table*))

....)

define-presentation-type is similar to deftype but defines some

additional information about use of the type in user interfaces.

Rationale:

Type specifiers with keyword arguments are used extensively in CLIM

and CLIM-based applications.

&AUX is allowed just for completeness.

Current practice:

Symbolics Genera 8.0 supports the proposal.

Lucid 3.0.1 signals an error (&KEY not allowed) for this example.

Franz Allegro CL 3.1.beta.22 supports the proposal.

Other implementations were not surveyed.

Cost to Implementors:

Should be small since this simply makes DEFTYPE support the same

lambda-list keywords as DEFUN and LAMBDA (which suggests an

implementation technique of inserting '* where an initform is not

specified for an &optional or &keyword argument and then making a

function that is applied to the cdr of the type specifier).

Cost to Users:

None.

Cost of non-adoption:

CLIM will not fit into Common Lisp as well. DEFTYPE will be less

consistent with the rest of the language.

Performance impact:

None.

Benefits:

Cost of non-adoption will not be incurred.

Esthetics:

DEFTYPE will be consistent with DEFUN, eliminating an arbitrary

restriction.

Discussion:

There has been some discussion about whether DEFTYPE supports

destructuring. It seems that CLtL pages 50 and 146 may contradict

each other on this point. This issue explicitly does not address

the question of destructuring.


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