Gerbil Scheme

R7RS support in Gerbil

Gerbil supports R7RS as a custom language with the :scheme/r7rs prelude. As such you can write and import modules written in R7RS Scheme and mix them freely with other Gerbil modules. Gerbil also supports all the libraries from R7RS-large, Red and Tangerine editions.

R7RS in the REPL

In pure Gerbil, you can also evaluate R7RS expression by using the eval procedure provided by :scheme/eval.

You can also start the Gerbil interpreter in an r7rs repl, by passing the option --lang r7rs.

$ gxi --lang r7rs
R7RS Scheme in Gerbil 0.17.0-202-g6a00c01c on Gambit v4.9.5
>

The top context uses R7RS scheme syntax and includes bindings from (scheme base).

R7RS Modules

Writing (or porting) an R7RS module is simple: you just specify :scheme/r7rs as the prelude. The prelude exports only the necessities to support library definitions and imports.

Note that there can be only a single library defined within a module, and its name must match the module id constructed by the package and name of the file. This implementation restriction has to do with library module resolution: Gerbil constructs a top module per file and resolves by interpreting the library name as a load-path relative path.

Gerbil modules can also have nested modules, but nested libraries are unspecified by the R7RS report and so they are disallowed for R7RS modules.

Example

With this in mind, we can reproduce the Life example from the R7RS report. First, let's define the (example grid) library:

$ cat > gerbil.pkg
(prelude: :scheme/r7rs)

$ mkdir example

$ cat > example/grid.ss
(define-library (example grid)
  (export make rows cols ref each
          (rename put! set!))
  (import (scheme base))
  (begin
    ;; Create an NxM grid.
    (define (make n m)
      (let ((grid (make-vector n)))
        (do ((i 0 (+ i 1)))
            ((= i n) grid)
          (let ((v (make-vector m #f)))
            (vector-set! grid i v)))))
    (define (rows grid)
      (vector-length grid))
    (define (cols grid)
      (vector-length (vector-ref grid 0)))
    ;; Return #false if out of range.
    (define (ref grid n m)
      (and (< -1 n (rows grid))
           (< -1 m (cols grid))
           (vector-ref (vector-ref grid n) m)))
    (define (put! grid n m v)
      (vector-set! (vector-ref grid n) m v))
    (define (each grid proc)
      (do ((j 0 (+ j 1)))
          ((= j (rows grid)))
        (do ((k 0 (+ k 1)))
            ((= k (cols grid)))
          (proc j k (ref grid j k)))))))

And then we define the (example life) library:

$ cat > example/life.ss
(define-library (example life)
  (export life)
  (import (except (scheme base) set!)
          (scheme write)
          (example grid))
  (begin
    (define (life-count grid i j)
      (define (count i j)
        (if (ref grid i j) 1 0))
      (+ (count (- i 1) (- j 1))
         (count (- i 1) j)
         (count (- i 1) (+ j 1))
         (count i (- j 1))
         (count i (+ j 1))
         (count (+ i 1) (- j 1))
         (count (+ i 1) j)
         (count (+ i 1) (+ j 1))))
    (define (life-alive? grid i j)
      (case (life-count grid i j)
        ((3) #t)
        ((2) (ref grid i j))
        (else #f)))
    (define (life-print grid)
      (display "\x1B;[1H\x1B;[J")       ; clear vt100
      (each grid
            (lambda (i j v)
              (display (if v "*" " "))
              (when (= j (- (cols grid) 1))
                (newline)))))
    (define (life grid iterations)
      (do ((i 0 (+ i 1))
           (grid0 grid grid1)
           (grid1 (make (rows grid) (cols grid))
                  grid0))
          ((= i iterations))
        (each grid0
              (lambda (j k v)
                (let ((a (life-alive? grid0 j k)))
                  (set! grid1 j k a))))
        (life-print grid1)))))

We compile our library modules with gxc as usual:

$ gxc -O example/grid.ss example/life.ss

And then we can run a little game of Life in the interpreter using the normal gerbil language prelude:

$ gxi
> (import (only-in :example/life life)
        (rename-in (prefix-in :example/grid grid-)
                   (grid-make make-grid)))

;; Initialize a grid with a glider.
> (define grid (make-grid 24 24))
> (grid-set! grid 1 1 #t)
> (grid-set! grid 2 2 #t)
> (grid-set! grid 3 0 #t)
> (grid-set! grid 3 1 #t)
> (grid-set! grid 3 2 #t)

;; Run for 80 iterations
> (life grid 80)
...

Evaluating R7RS Expressions

This is just a matter of using the r7rs language prelude in gxi:

$ gxi --lang r7rs
> (import (scheme base)
          (only (example life) life)
          (rename (prefix (example grid) grid-)
                  (grid-make make-grid)))
> (begin
    (define grid (make-grid 24 24))
    (grid-set! grid 1 1 #t)
    (grid-set! grid 2 2 #t)
    (grid-set! grid 3 0 #t)
    (grid-set! grid 3 1 #t)
    (grid-set! grid 3 2 #t))
> (life grid 80)
...

Implementation Notes

  • The define-library form can appear at most once per library module and the library id must match the id of the enclosing module.

  • The reader doesn't accept shared structures by default, as cycles are not currently supported in syntax objects. You can enable it on a per-port basis with a custom readtable, but be advised that the repl will loop when given a cyclic structure as syntax input.

  • ephemerons, in the (scheme ephemeron) library, are implemented as weak pairs and will never be broken if the key is referred to by the datum.

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