Implementation Notes

1. Overview

The Lisp implementation of lisp.go is a translation of lisp.dart at lisp-in-dart. For simplicity of Go, lisp.go restricts numbers in Lisp to float64 only, while it provides future and force for concurrent computation with goroutines.

Below is an example of running lisp.go. If you have a Go compiler, you can try Lisp right away without any preparations.

$ go build lisp.go
$ ./lisp
> (+ 5 6)
11
> (exit 0)
$

Some features common to lisp.go and lisp.dart are

It is basically a subset of Emacs Lisp. However, it is a Lisp-1 with static scoping. In short, it is a Common Lisp-like Lisp-1.
It makes proper tail calls always.
A quasi-quotation with backquote will be expanded when macros are expanded.
A circular list is printed with ... finitely.
As an escape sequence within strings, you can use any of \", \\, \n, \r, \f, \b, \t, \v.
(dump) returns a list of all global variables. The list does not include special forms such as lambda and setq since they are not variables.
*version* is a three-element list: the (internal) version number, the implementing language, and the name of implementation.
(macro args body) is a special form that evaluates to a sort of anonymous function, or macro expression. The global environment will be used whenever (macro ...) evaluates. When you apply the resultant macro expression to a list of actual arguments, the arguments will not be evaluated and the result of the application will be evaluated again. Thus a variable bound to a macro expression works as a macro.
defmacro is a macro which binds a variable to a macro expression.
defun is a macro which binds a variable to a lambda expression.
let is a macro which applies a lambda expression to a list of initial values of variables.
Free symbols within a macro expression will not be captured when the expression is applied (i.e., when the macro is expanded).

By the last feature above, you can avoid variable captures in any macro definitions, provided that you use the result of (gensym) for any symbol newly introduced to the expansion result. See lisp-in-dart/IMPLEMENTATION-NOTES §5.

Note: I believe the last feature makes the behavior of traditional macros ideal. As macros being partially hygienic, you can define anaphoric macros (Japanese) by introducing a symbol (it in the following example) to the expansion result intentionally without using (gensym).

> (defmacro aif (test then else)
    `(let ((it ,test))
       (if it ,then ,else) ))
aif
> (aif (+ 7 8 9)
     (print it)
    (print "?"))
24
24
>

A restriction of lisp.go compared to lisp.dart is

All numbers are represented by double precision floating point numbers (float64 in Go).

Note: That is why I call it Light. Maybe I should call it Lite, but I followed the usage of Light in the famous Caml Light.

> *version*
(1.42 "go1.10.1 darwin/amd64" "Nukata Lisp Light")
>

In addition, there is a feature inherited from my first Go Lisp in 2013:

Concurrent computations with goroutines are delivered by the special form (future expression) and the function (force future). See "Futures and promises" at Wikipedia.

The following example calculates Fibonacci numbers concurrently, though it may be too fine-grained to be efficient.

> (defun fib (n)
    (if (<= n 1)
        n
      (let ((a (future (fib (- n 1))))
            (b (future (fib (- n 2)))))
        (+ (force a)
           (force b) ))))
fib
> (fib 10)
55
> (fib 20)
6765
> (fib 30)
832040
>

fib computes (fib (- n 1)) and (fib (- n 2)) in each goroutine separately and adds the results by (+ (force a) (force b)).

2. Internal Data Representation

To represent data of the implemented language (Lisp), native types of the implementing language (Go) are used as they are, if possible. They are all treated as interface{} uniformly.

Lisp Expression	Internal Representation
numbers `1`, `2.3`	`float64`
strings `"abc"`, `"hello!\n"`	`string`
`t`	`true`
`nil`	`nil` of `*Cell`
symbols `x`, `+`	`Sym` (user-defined)
keywords `lambda`, `cond`	`Sym` (`IsKeyword` flag is `true`)
lists `(x 1 "2")`, `(y . 3)`	`Cell` (user-defined)

Below is the definition of the type Cell.

// Cell represents a cons cell.
// &Cell{car, cdr} works as the "cons" operation.
type Cell struct {
	Car interface{}
	Cdr interface{}
}

// Nil is a nil of type *Cell and it represents the empty list.
var Nil *Cell = nil

Below is the definition of the type Sym.

// Sym represents a symbol (or an expression keyword) in Lisp.
// &Sym{name, false} constructs a symbol which is not interned yet.
type Sym struct {
	Name      string
	IsKeyword bool
}

The map symbols is used to intern symbols. The mutex symLock guards access to symbols in concurrent computations with goroutines.

// NewSym constructs an interned symbol for name.
func NewSym(name string) *Sym {
	return NewSym2(name, false)
}

// symbols is a table of interned symbols.
var symbols = make(map[string]*Sym)

// symLock is an exclusive lock for the table.
var symLock sync.RWMutex

// NewSym2 constructs an interned symbol (or an expression keyword
// if isKeyword is true on its first construction) for name.
func NewSym2(name string, isKeyword bool) *Sym {
	symLock.Lock()
	sym, ok := symbols[name]
	if !ok {
		sym = &Sym{name, isKeyword}
		symbols[name] = sym
	}
	symLock.Unlock()
	return sym
}

3. Implementations of Lisp functions

The core of Lisp interpreter is represented by the structure Interp. It consists of a map for global variables and an exclusive lock for the map.

// Interp represents a core of the interpreter.
type Interp struct {
	globals map[*Sym]interface{}
	lock    sync.RWMutex
}

Each built-in Lisp function is defined with the utility function below. The carity argument takes the arity of the function to be defined. If the function has &rest, the carity takes -(number of fixed arguments + 1).

// Def defines a built-in function by giving a name, arity, and body.
func (interp *Interp) Def(name string, carity int,
	body func([]interface{}) interface{}) {
	sym := NewSym(name)
	fnc := NewBuiltInFunc(name, carity, body)
	interp.SetGlobalVar(sym, fnc)
}

Below is an excerpt of the function NewInterp corresponding to the constructor of Interp. It shows the implementation of five elementary functions of Lisp.

// NewInterp constructs an interpreter and sets built-in functions etc. as
// the global values of symbols within the interpreter.
func NewInterp() *Interp {
	interp := &Interp{globals: make(map[*Sym]interface{})}

	interp.Def("car", 1, func(a []interface{}) interface{} {
		if a[0] == Nil {
			return Nil
		}
		return a[0].(*Cell).Car
	})

	interp.Def("cdr", 1, func(a []interface{}) interface{} {
		if a[0] == Nil {
			return Nil
		}
		return a[0].(*Cell).Cdr
	})

	interp.Def("cons", 2, func(a []interface{}) interface{} {
		return &Cell{a[0], a[1]}
	})

	interp.Def("atom", 1, func(a []interface{}) interface{} {
		if j, ok := a[0].(*Cell); ok && j != Nil {
			return Nil
		}
		return true
	})

	interp.Def("eq", 2, func(a []interface{}) interface{} {
		if a[0] == a[1] { // Cells are compared by address.
			return true
		}
		return Nil
	})

The function dump takes no arguments and returns a list of all global variables. Within read-lock of interp.lock, dump reads the keys from interp.globals and constructs a list of them.

	interp.Def("dump", 0, func(a []interface{}) interface{} {
		interp.lock.RLock()
		defer interp.lock.RUnlock()
		r := Nil
		for key := range interp.globals {
			r = &Cell{key, r}
		}
		return r
	})

Below is an example of running (dump).

> (dump)
(append > cdaar + last or symbol-name prin1 / stringp assoc assq consp caddr def
macro princ < when setcdr truncate - list eq dump apply intern equal not caar fo
rce nreverse _nreverse caadr make-symbol dolist listp * member setcar *version* 
cdr dotimes cdddr cdadr cdar car while _append if >= print exit *gensym-counter*
 length let /= = and letrec <= cons nconc cddr cadr gensym memq defun % cadar ca
aar mod mapcar eql rplaca terpri numberp rplacd atom null identity cddar)
>

Several functions and macros of Lisp are defined in the initialization script Prelude. It runs at the beginning of the Main function:

// Main runs each element of args as a name of Lisp script file.
// It ignores args[0].
// If it does not have args[1] or some element is "-", it begins REPL.
func Main(args []string) int {
	interp := NewInterp()
	ss := strings.NewReader(Prelude)
	if !Run(interp, ss) {
		return 1
	}
	if len(args) < 2 {
		args = []string{args[0], "-"}
	}
	for i, fileName := range args {
		if i == 0 {
			continue
		}
		if fileName == "-" {
			Run(interp, nil)
			fmt.Println("Goodbye")
		} else {
			file, err := os.Open(fileName)
			if err != nil {
				fmt.Println(err)
				return 1
			}
			if !Run(interp, file) {
				return 1
			}
		}
	}
	return 0
}

func main() {
	os.Exit(Main(os.Args))
}

Below is the head of Prelude.

// Prelude is an initialization script of Lisp.
// Each "~" is replaced by "`" at runtime.
var Prelude = strings.Replace(`
(setq defmacro
      (macro (name args &rest body)
             ~(progn (setq ,name (macro ,args ,@body))
                     ',name)))

(defmacro defun (name args &rest body)
  ~(progn (setq ,name (lambda ,args ,@body))
          ',name))

(defun caar (x) (car (car x)))
(defun cadr (x) (car (cdr x)))
(defun cdar (x) (cdr (car x)))
(defun cddr (x) (cdr (cdr x)))

The tail of Prelude is as follows:

(defmacro dotimes (spec &rest body) ; (dotimes (name count [result]) body...)
  (let ((name (car spec))
        (count (gensym)))
    ~(let ((,name 0)
           (,count ,(cadr spec)))
       (while (< ,name ,count)
         ,@body
         (setq ,name (+ ,name 1)))
       ,@(if (cddr spec)
             ~(,(caddr spec))))))
`, "~", "`", -1)

Since "`" cannot occur within a raw string literal of Go, "~" substitues for it. Each "~" will be replaced by "`" at runtime with strings.Replace.

Provide feedback

Saved searches

Use saved searches to filter your results more quickly

IMPLEMENTATION-NOTES.md

IMPLEMENTATION-NOTES.md

Implementation Notes

1. Overview

2. Internal Data Representation

3. Implementations of Lisp functions

Files

IMPLEMENTATION-NOTES.md

Latest commit

History

IMPLEMENTATION-NOTES.md

File metadata and controls

Implementation Notes

1. Overview

2. Internal Data Representation

3. Implementations of Lisp functions