Showing some Common Lisp features

Author: Solène

Date: 05 December 2017

Tags: lisp

NIL# Introduction: comparing LISP to Perl and Python

We will refer to Common LISP as CL in the following article.

I wrote it to share what I like about CL. I'm using Perl to compare CL

features. I am using real world cases for the average programmer. If

you are a CL or perl expert, you may say that some example could be

rewritten with very specific syntax to make it smaller or faster, but

the point here is to show usual and readable examples for usual

programmers.

This article is aimed at people with programming interest, some basis

of programming knowledge are needed to understand the following. If

you know how to read C, Php, Python or Perl it should be

enough. Examples have been choosed to be easy.

I thank my friend killruana for his contribution as he wrote the

python code.

Variables

Scope: global

**Common Lisp code**

(defparameter *variable* "value")

Defining a variable with defparameter on top-level (= outside of a

function) will make it global. It is common to surround the name of

global variables with **\*** character in CL code. This is only for

readability for the programmer, the use of **\*** has no

incidence.

**Perl code**

my $variable = "value";

**Python code**

variable = "value";

Scope: local

This is where it begins interesting in CL. Declaring a local variable

with **let** create a new scope with parenthesis where the variable

isn't known outside of it. This prevent doing bad things with

variables not set or already freed. **let** can define multiple

variables at once, or even variables depending on previously declared

variables using **let\***

**Common Lisp code**

(let ((value (http-request)))

(when value

(let* ((page-title (get-title value))

(title-size (length page-title)))

(when page-title

(let ((first-char (subseq page-title 0 1)))

(format t "First char of page title is ~a~%" first-char))))))

**Perl code**

{

local $value = http_request;

if($value) {

local $page_title = get_title $value;

local $title_size = get_size $page_title;

if($page_title) {

local $first_char = substr $page_title, 0, 1;

printf "First char of page title is %s\n", $first_char;

}

}

}

The scope of a local value is limited to the parent curly brakets, of

a if/while/for/foreach or plain brakets.

**Python code**

if True:

hello = 'World'

print(hello) # displays World

There is no way to define a local variable in python, the scope of the

variable is limited to the parent function.

Printing and format text

CL has a VERY powerful function to print and format text, it's even

named format. It can even manage plurals of words (in english only) !

**Common Lisp code**

(let ((words (list "hello" "Dave" "How are you" "today ?")))

(format t "~{~a ~}~%" words))

format can loop over lists using **~{** as start and **~}** as end.

**Perl code**

my @words = @{["hello", "Dave", "How are you", "today ?"]};

foreach my $element (@words) {

printf "%s ", $element;

}

print "\n";

**Python code**

Printing and format text

Loop version

words = ["hello", "Dave", "How are you", "today ?"]

for word in words:

print(word, end=' ')

print()

list expansion version

words = ["hello", "Dave", "How are you", "today ?"]

print(*words)

Functions

function parameters: rest

Sometimes we need to pass to a function a not known number of

arguments. CL supports it with **&rest** keyword in the function

declaration, while perl supports it using the **@\_** sigil.

**Common Lisp code**

(defun my-function(parameter1 parameter2 &rest rest)

(format t "My first and second parameters are ~a and ~a.~%Others parameters are~%~{ - ~a~%~}~%"

parameter1 parameter2 rest))

(my-function "hello" "world" 1 2 3)

**Perl code**

sub my_function {

my $parameter1 = shift;

my $parameter2 = shift;

my @rest = @_;

printf "My first and second parameters are %s and %s.\nOthers parameters are\n",

$parameter1, $parameter2;

foreach my $element (@rest) {

printf " - %s\n", $element;

}

}

my_function "hello", "world", 0, 1, 2, 3;

**Python code**

def my_function(parameter1, parameter2, *rest):

print("My first and second parameters are {} and {}".format(parameter1, parameter2))

print("Others parameters are")

for parameter in rest:

print(" - {}".format(parameter))

my_function("hello", "world", 0, 1, 2, 3)

The trick in python to handle rests arguments is the wildcard

character in the function definition.

function parameters: named parameters

CL supports named parameters using a keyword to specify its

name. While it's not at all possible on perl. Using a hash has

parameter can do the job in perl.

CL allow to choose a default value if a parameter isn't set,

it's harder to do it in perl, we must check if the key is already set

in the hash and give it a value in the function.

**Common Lisp code**

(defun my-function(&key (key1 "default") (key2 0))

(format t "Key1 is ~a and key2 (~a) has a default of 0.~%"

key1 key2))

(my-function :key1 "nice" :key2 ".Y.")

There is no way to pass named parameter to a perl function. The best

way it to pass a hash variable, check the keys needed and assign a

default value if they are undefined.

**Perl code**

sub my_function {

my $hash = shift;

if(! exists $hash->{key1}) {

$hash->{key1} = "default";

}

if(! exists $hash->{key2}) {

$hash->{key2} = 0;

}

printf "My key1 is %s and key2 (%s) default to 0.\n",

$hash->{key1}, $hash->{key2};

}

my_function { key1 => "nice", key2 => ".Y." };

**Python code**

def my_function(key1="default", key2=0):

print("My key1 is {} and key2 ({}) default to 0.".format(key1, key2))

my_function(key1="nice", key2=".Y.")

Loop

CL has only one loop operator, named loop, which could be seen as an

entire language itself. Perl has do while, while, for and foreach.

loop: for

**Common Lisp code**

(loop for i from 1 to 100

do

(format t "Hello ~a~%" i))

**Perl code**

for(my $i=1; $i <= 100; $i++) {

printf "Hello %i\n";

}

**Python code**

for i in range(1, 101):

print("Hello {}".format(i))

loop: foreach

**Common Lisp code**

(let ((elements '(a b c d e f)))

(loop for element in elements

counting element into count

do

(format t "Element number ~s : ~s~%"

count element)))

**Perl code**

verbose and readable version

my @elements = @{['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f']};

my $count = 0;

foreach my $element (@elements) {

$count++;

printf "Element number %i : %s\n", $count, $element;

}

compact version

for(my $i=0; $i<$#elements+1;$i++) {

printf "Element number %i : %s\n", $i+1, $elements[$i];

}

**Python code**

Loop foreach

elements = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f']

count = 0

for element in elements:

count += 1

print("Element number {} : {}".format(count, element))

Pythonic version

elements = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f']

for index, element in enumerate(elements):

print("Element number {} : {}".format(index, element))

LISP only tricks

Store/restore data on disk

The simplest way to store data in LISP is to write a data structure

into a file, using **print** function. The code output with **print**

can be evaluated later with **read**.

**Common Lisp code**

(defun restore-data(file)

(when (probe-file file)

(with-open-file (x file :direction :input)

(read x))))

(defun save-data(file data)

(with-open-file (x file

:direction :output

:if-does-not-exist :create

:if-exists :supersede)

(print data x)))

;; using the functions

(save-data "books.lisp" *books*)

(defparameter *books* (restore-data "books.lisp"))

This permit to skip the use of a data storage format like XML or

JSON. Common LISP can read Common LISP, this is all it needs. It can

store objets like arrays, lists or structures using plain text

format. **It can't dump hash tables directly.**

Creating a new syntax with a simple macro

Sometimes we have cases where we need to repeat code and there is no

way to reduce it because it's too much specific or because it's due to

the language itself. Here is an example where we can use a simple

macro to reduce the written code in a succession of conditions doing

the same check.

We will start from this

**Common Lisp code**

(when value

(when (string= line-type "3")

(progn

(print-with-color "error" 'red line-number)

(log-to-file "error")))

(when (string= line-type "4")

(print-with-color text))

(when (string= line-type "5")

(print-with-color "nothing")))

to this, using a macro

**Common Lisp code**

(defmacro check(identifier &body code)

`(progn

(when (string= line-type ,identifier)

,@code)))

(when value

(check "3"

(print-with-color "error" 'red line-number)

(log-to-file "error"))

(check "4"

(print-with-color text))

(check "5"

(print-with-color "nothing")))

The code is much more readable and the macro is easy to

understand. One could argue that in another language a switch/case

could work here, I choosed a simple example to illustrate the use of a

macro, but they can achieve more.

Create powerful wrappers with macros

I'm using macros when I need to repeat code that affect variables. A

lot of CL modules offers a structure like **with-something**, it's a

wrapper macro that will do some logic like opening a database,

checking it's opened, closing it at the end and executing your code

inside.

Here I will write a tiny http request wrapper, allowing me to write

http request very easily, my code being able to use variables from the

macro.

**Common Lisp code**

(defmacro with-http(url)

`(progn

(multiple-value-bind (content status head)

(drakma:http-request ,url :connection-timeout 3)

(when content

,@code))))

(with-http "https://dataswamp.org/"

(format t "We fetched headers ~a with status ~a. Content size is ~d bytes.~%"

status head (length content)))

In Perl, the following would be written like this

**Perl code**

sub get_http {

my $url = $1;

my %http = magic_http_get $url;

if($http{content}) {

return %http;

} else {

return undef;

}

}

{

local %data = get_http "https://dataswamp.org/";

if(%data) {

printf "We fetched headers %s with status %d. Content size is %d bytes.\n",

$http{headers}, $http{status}, length($http{content});

}

}

The curly brackets are important there, I want to emphase that the

**local** %data variable is only available inside the curly

brackets. Lisp is written in a successive of local scope and this is

something I really like.

**Python code**

import requests

with requests.get("https://dataswamp.org/") as fd:

print("We fetched headers %s with status %d. Content size is %s bytes." \

% (list(fd.headers.keys()), fd.status_code, len(fd.content)))