Dynamic function call in Racket class combined with apply - scheme

TL;DR
What I'm looking for is a combination of the functions send/apply and dynamic-send. So that it finds a method of an object based on a symbol and unpacks a list of arguments.
Background and more info
For a project I am sending some "commands" trough the network with Racket's tcp-connect. At the receivers end this command should execute a method from a class and pass along its parameters.
Consider the following received 'message':
(define message (list 'set-switch! '3 'on))
(define method-name (car msg)) ;'set-switch!
(define parameters (cdr msg)) ;(list '3 'on)
And the following class:
(define light%
(class object%
(super-new)
...
(define/public (set-switch! id mode)
(vector-set! switches id mode))))
The problem now is that when executing this statement
(dynamic-send light-class method-name parameters)
it perfectly finds the method set-switch! but it calls it with only one parameter (list '3 'on).
The Racket docs mention those three functions for classes:
(send obj-expr method-id arg) which just executes a method of an object
(send/apply obj-expr method-id arg-list-expr) which executes a method AND unpacks the argument list
(dynamic-send obj method-name v) which finds a method-name based on a symbol
What I think I need is something like (dynamic-send/apply obj method-name arg-list-expr) which combines the last two mentioned.
Note: I know that I could just simply accept lists as parameters and use car and cdr in the functions itself to get the right values. But that's not what I want.

dynamic-send is a function (also known as procedure; e.g., car, vector-set!, +), so you can use apply:
(apply dynamic-send light-class method-name parameters)
Or even simply:
(apply dynamic-send light-class message)
The reason why send has the send/apply variant is that send is a form (also known as syntax; e.g., let, define, if), so apply doesn't work and hence send/apply is separately provided.

Related

How to advice-add a function with no arguments to a function that takes arguments?

Say I have a functions as follows:
(defun my/test-a (n)
(interactive)
(message n))
(defun my/test-b ()
(interactive)
(sleep-for .5)
(message "Message - B.")
(sleep-for .5))
I then advice my/test-a with mytest-b like so: (advice-add 'my/test-a :after #'my/test-b).
However when I call (my/test-a "Message - A.") I get a "Wrong number of arguments" error. My understanding is that add-advice is feeding the argument into my/test-b, which is not expecting any arguments.
How to advice-add a function with no arguments to a function that takes arguments?
I could change my/test-b so it takes an argument and doesn't use it, but that feels very messy.
Related followup - how could I advise find-file with a function with no arguments (like my/test-b)? I understand find-file is an unusual case, because it doesn't need an argument if called interactively. But if I run (advice-add 'find-file :after #'my/test-b) and then (call-interactively 'find-file) I get a "Wrong Number Of Arguments" error again.
TIA.
You can't do that.
Your advice function has to accept the arguments for the original function.
C-hig (elisp)Advice Combinators says:
:after
Call FUNCTION after the old function. Both functions receive the
same arguments, and the return value of the composition is the
return value of the old function. More specifically, the
composition of the two functions behaves like:
(lambda (&rest r) (prog1 (apply OLDFUN r) (apply FUNCTION r)))
A way to take arbitrary arguments and ignore them is:
(defun foo (&rest _args) ...)
The underscore tells the byte-compiler that the arguments are unused in the function body on purpose.

In Clojurescript, how do I pass a collection's elements as arguments to a variable arity Javascript function?

This writes to console the way I would expect:
(.log js/console "hi" "there")
The output is
hi there
This, however, just writes a big mess to the console:
(defn log-it [& args] (.log js/console args))
(log-it "hello" "there")
The output is:
c…s.c…e.IndexedSeq {arr: Array[2], i: 0, meta: null, cljs$lang$protocol_mask$partition0$: 166592766, cljs$lang$protocol_mask$partition1$: 8192}
This also does NOT work:
(apply .log js/console ["hi" "there"])
Is there a way to pass the vector's elements into the .log function?
Do I have to write a macro to concat the vector on to '(.log js/console)?
The problem here is that you're trying to log the value of args (which is a Clojure IndexedSeq) rather than passing the values in the seq as individual arguments. In this case you need to use apply (or convert that sequence to a native data structure).
The reason your other example doesn't work should become clear if you look at the signature for apply.
(apply f args)
It expects the first argument to be the function you want to invoke, but here, the first argument is .log.
(apply .log js/console ["hi" "there"])
Remember that .log js/console is the syntax for invoking the log method on console. Instead, we want to get a reference to the console.log function.
(apply (.-log js/console) args)
We're using .-log to read the .log property, rather than call it as a method. Then we pass that along with our args sequence.
So instead, you can define the original function as:
(defn log-it
[& args]
(apply (.-log js/console) args))
Or if you want to get a little bit smarter.
(def log-it (partial (.-log js/console)))

re-internilizing a symbol from namespace-mapped-symbols

I'm not sure if the question title is appropriate but here is what I wonder:
From the repl, I wanted to get the list of bindings defined in the current module. After some searching this seemed like a good solution:
(define (racket-symbols-set)
(list->set (namespace-mapped-symbols (module->namespace 'racket))))
(define (namespace-symbols-set)
(list->set (namespace-mapped-symbols)))
(define (module-bindings)
(set->list (set-subtract
(namespace-symbols-set)
(racket-symbols-set))))
so, calling (module-bindings) returns a list of symbols. But if I try to call a symbol from that result, such as doing ((first (module-bindings))), I get a "application: not a procedure" error although the first symbol is a procedure.
How do I call the corresponding procedure of that symbol?
You can look up the value of a namespace variable using namespace-variable-value. And since your namespace-symbols-set just uses the current namespace, which is also the default namespace for namespace-variable-value, using it is very simple.
For example, to invoke the procedure associated with the first item in the list returned by your module-bindings procedure:
((namespace-variable-value (car (module-bindings))))
Alternatively, specify your preferred namespace as the fourth argument of the namespace-variable-value call.
You need to evaluate that symbol in order for it to return the corresponding procedure.
> (define (foo) 'bar)
> (eval 'foo)
#<procedure:foo>
> ((eval 'foo))
'bar
Hence in your case
((eval (car (module-bindings))))
will call the first procedure of the list returned by module-bindings.

How to extract list from Scheme program?

I have been giving a language in Scheme.
(define-datatype statement statement?
(add1 (V symbol?))
(sub1 (V symbol?))
(skip (V symbol?))
(if-goto (V symbol?)
(l symbol?)))
(define-datatype instruction instruction?
(labeled (l symbol?)
(i statement?))
(unlabeled (i statement?)))
(define-datatype program program?
(a-program (l (list-of instruction?))))
I am trying to create a new function which will be able to convert the program into a list of instructions. How would I go about doing this?
Here is what I have so far:
(define pgm->list
(lambda (pgm)
;what goes here
sorry if this is wrong, if it is could you share a working implementation of your code?
i am really confused with
(define-datatype program program?
(a-program (l (list-of instruction?))))
what is list-of? i should imagine here that you want to declare some variants of programs.
a-program would be defined as a list of instructions... ok. if list-of returns a lambda that is a correct predicate (that returns true only when acted on a list of instructions) then
does this work?
(define pgm->list
(lambda (pgm)
(cases program pgm
(a-program (l) l))))
Edit : Since define-datatype was unknown to most of us except OP, i'm adding some documentation:
[syntax] (define-datatype TYPENAME [PREDICATE] VARIANT ...)
Defines a record type named TYPENAME, where VARIANT ... defines one or more
constructors for instances of this type. VARIANT should be of the form
VARIANT = (CONSTRUCTOR (FIELDNAME FIELDPRED) ...)
CONSTRUCTOR is the name of a constructor procedure that will be defined with as
many arguments as fields are specified. (FIELDNAME FIELDPRED) ... specify the name
for each field and a procedure of one argment that should return a true value for
legal field values.
The optional PREDICATE should be the name of a procedure that will be defined and
which returns #t when applied to an instance of this variant record.
[syntax] (cases TYPENAME EXP CLAUSE ...)
A facility for matching and deconstructing the instance EXP of the variant record
with the name TYPENAME. Each CLAUSE specifies a constructor with field-names and
a body to execute when the constructor matches the record instance:
CLAUSE = (CONSTRUCTOR (FIELDNAME ...) BODY ...)
| (else BODY ...)
cheers!

Message passing scheme

Can anyone briefly explain to me how message passing is implemented in scheme? I think I am little off on the whole concept of message passing.
Take a look at SICP.
http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book-Z-H-17.html#%_sec_2.4.1
http://www.michaelharrison.ws/weblog/?p=50
Message passing in the context of closures
The following example defines a closure implementing a simple calculator. The function make-calculator is similar to what object oriented languages call the constructor. The difference is: make-calculator returns a function, while constructors return object values. In object oriented languages object values are first class values. Scheme does not have such values. An object first class values provides the functionality to access object member variables and object methods. In Scheme this functionality has to be emulated by the definition of a dispatch function. make-calculator returns such a function. The body of make-calculator defines
two variables a and b (member variables)
two mutation functions set-a! and set-b! (accessors)
four evaluation functions addition, subtraction, multiplication and division (methods)
The above definitions are local to the closure make-calculator. In an object oriented language they are called private. The dispatch function makes the functions public and keeps the variables private. This works, because the dispatch function has access to the local scope of the make-calculator closure. The dispatch function accepts a message and returns the matching function. This exposes the local functions to the caller of the dispatch function.
(define (make-calculator)
(define a)
(define b)
(define (set-a! value)
(set! a value))
(define (set-b! value)
(set! b value))
(define (addition)
(+ a b))
(define (subtraction)
(- a b))
(define (multiplication)
(* a b))
(define (division)
(/ a b))
(lambda (message)
(case message
((set-a!) set-a!)
((set-b!) set-b!)
((addition) addition)
((subtraction) subtraction)
((multiplication) multiplication)
((division) division))))
First the constructor has to be called to create an "object". calc is the dispatch function, which accepts different messages, which are just symbols.
(define calc (make-calculator))
Sending a message means calling the dispatch function with a symbol argument. The following sends the message set-a! to calc, which returns the value of the local function set-a!. The name of the message and the name of the local function are the same in this case. This helps to avoid confusion, but it is not required.
(calc 'set-a!) ;; => #<procedure set-a!>
Because calc returns a function, an additional application is necessary to call the accessor. The following sets a to 3 and b to 5.
((calc 'set-a!) 3)
((calc 'set-b!) 5)
Now we can calculate:
((calc 'addition)) ;; => 8
((calc 'subtraction)) ;; => -2
((calc 'multiplication)) ;; => 15
((calc 'division)) ;; => 3/15
The code works this way in Chez Scheme.

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