assert / check-type / assure...

[Pascal Costanza]

On 22 Sep 2013, at 18:44, Steve Haflich <shaflich at gmail.com> wrote:

> As language lawyer, I must point out that the proposed definition of assure is not compatible with places that are multiple-valued.  check-type is required to be (because the ANS mentions no exception about it) although I'm sure lots of implementations get this wrong.

Another good point. However, this seems to suggest that it's not possible to implement ASSURE portably if the goal is to cover multiple values as well. Or am I missing something?

Pascal

> On Sun, Sep 22, 2013 at 6:53 AM, Pascal Costanza <pc at p-cos.net> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> It seems to me that ASSERT and CHECK-TYPE are not as convenient as they could be. In particular, ISLISP seems to have a better alternative in ASSURE.
> 
> ASSURE is easy to define:
> 
> (defmacro assure (type form)
>   (let ((object (copy-symbol 'object)))
>     `(let ((,object ,form))
>        (check-type ,object ,type)
>        ,object)))
> 
> The important difference is that the value of form is returned, which allows using ASSURE inline in expressions:
> 
> (1+ (assure number x))
> 
> …in place of the more lengthy:
> 
> (progn
>   (check-type x number)
>   (1+ x))
> 
> Is ASSURE, or something similar, part of any utility library, like Alexandria or the likes?
> 
> On an unrelated note, I recently came up with the following utility macro which I found very useful:
> 
> (defmacro assocf (item alist &optional default &rest keys &key test test-not key)
>   (declare (ignore test test-not key))
>   (let ((it (copy-symbol 'it)) (cons (copy-symbol 'cons)))
>     `(let* ((,it ,item) (,cons (assoc ,it ,alist , at keys)))
>        (unless ,cons
>          (setf ,cons (cons ,it ,default)
>                ,alist (cons ,cons ,alist)))
>        ,cons)))
> 
> Again, is something like this already part of some utility library?
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> Pascal
> 
> --
> Pascal Costanza
> The views expressed in this email are my own, and not those of my employer.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

--
Pascal Costanza
The views expressed in this email are my own, and not those of my employer.



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