A defvars macro

[Rock]

I wrote a very simple little macro:

(defmacro defvars (names values)
`(progn
,@(loop for name in names for value in values
collect `(defvar ,name ,value))
NIL))

that's supposed to allow me to do something like this:

(defvars (*a* *b*) ((sin 1) (complex 3 4)))

Does that look ok or can it be improved?

Thanks.

Rock

[Tamas K Papp]

If it does what you want, than I guess it is OK. I would make it
parse pairs though, eg

(defvars *a* (sin 1)
*b* (complex 3 4))

because if you have many arguments, it might be difficult to follow
what goes where with the original syntax (at least for me). Cf the
syntax of setf.

Tamas

[Rock]

Yes, that's an interesting possibility. Thank you.

[Rob Warnock]

Tamas K Papp <tkp...@gmail.com> wrote:

+---------------

| Rock wrote:
| > I wrote a very simple little macro:

...

| > that's supposed to allow me to do something like this:
| > (defvars (*a* *b*) ((sin 1) (complex 3 4)))

...

| If it does what you want, than I guess it is OK. I would make it
| parse pairs though, eg
| (defvars *a* (sin 1)
| *b* (complex 3 4))

+---------------

Where are you going to put the documentation strings?
You'd need something like this to cover all the cases:

(defvars (*x*) ; No initial value.
(*a* (sin 1)) ; A value, but no doc string.
(*b* (complex 3 4))) "A point on the plane." ; Both.

And given that, I really don't see any advantage over the default:

(defvar *x*) ; No initial value.
(defvar *a* (sin 1)) ; A value, but no doc string.
(defvar *b* (complex 3 4)) "A point on the plane." ; Both.

-Rob

-----
Rob Warnock <rp...@rpw3.org>
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