Installation

Download from the Releases section.

I'll promote v0.10.0 to v1.0.0 if there are no significant changes over the next year.

Getting Started

(reader:enable-reader-syntax &rest reader-macro-identifiers)
;; OR
(reader+swank:enable-package-local-reader-syntax &rest reader-macro-identifiers)
;; (describe 'reader:enable-reader-syntax) ; for a list of identifiers

;; Complementory macros
;; (reader:disable-reader-syntax) ; is complementary
;; OR
;; (reader+swank-disable-package-local-reader-syntax)

Examples

CL-USER> #[[1 2 3
            4 5 6]
           [3 2 1
            7 8 9]]
#3A(((1 2 3) (4 5 6)) ((3 2 1) (7 8 9)))        ; cleaner syntax for arrays
CL-USER> (gethash 'a {eq 'a 1 'b 2})            ; hash-tables
1
T
CL-USER> (hash-set:hs-memberp #{"a" "b" "c"} "c") ; hash-set - can change in future
T
CL-USER> [#2A((1 2 3) (4 5 6)) 1 0]             ; accessors
4
CL-USER> (setf reader:*get-val-array-function* 'select:select)
SLCT:SELECT
CL-USER> (let ((arr #2A((1 2 3) (4 5 6))))
           [arr t 0])
#(1 4)
CL-USER> [{"a" 1 "b" 2} "a"]
1
T
CL-USER> [(cl-json:decode-json-from-string "{\"a\":1, \"b\":2}") :b] ; works with alists
2
CL-USER> (-> {"a" "apple" "b" "ball"} ["b"] [1]); accessors can be chained using arrows:->
#\a
CL-USER> #!echo -n hello world
hello world                                     ; Captures until the end of line
NIL                                             ; Should be possible to capture into a string
NIL                                             ; but not ideal for speed
0
CL-USER> (let ((a t)) !a)                       ; not
NIL
CL-USER> (let ((a 5.0d0)) $a)                   ; write-to-string
"5.0d0"                   ; should this be "ensure-string"? raise an issue!
CL-USER> ?reader:enable-reader-syntax           ; variable use not intended
READER:ENABLE-READER-SYNTAX
  [symbol]
ENABLE-READER-SYNTAX names a macro:
  Lambda-list: (&REST READER::READER-MACRO-IDENTIFIERS)
  Documentation:
    READER-MACRO-IDENTIFIERS are any of the following symbols:
      GET-VAL, HASH-TABLE, NOT, STRING, DESCRIBE, ARRAY, SET, RUN-PROGRAM
  Source file: /home/user/quicklisp/local-projects/reader/reader.lisp

Notes

The functions used for constructing arrays, hash-tables, sets, accessing array elements or accessors in general can be specified by

• *array-function*
• *hash-table-function*
• *set-function*
• *get-val-array-function*
• *get-val-function*

This should allow users to use fset or access or other libraries for the respective functions.

By default, alists and plists are treated distinct from lists whenever possible (see the get-val method specialized on lists). To disable this behavior, set each of these to T:

• *alists-are-lists*
• *plists-are-lists*

Hash Tables

• {"a" 1 "b" 2} - hash tables use 'equalp as the default test. The intended test function can be specified as the first element of the literal syntax. Besides providing with a choice, this also gets the indentation correct (see Modification for emacs.

Setting alists and plists

• (setf [] ...) does not work with empty alists and plists. This seems to require setf-expanders with get-val generic-function.

array vs get-val

• [...] (get-val) does not work inside #[...] (array) syntax. I do not have a plan or haven't figured out how to combine the two; and I find that okay since the array syntax is meant for cleaner representation in works involving matrices.

Notes for existing users upgrading to v0.10.0 from v0.9.1

Lambda

• lambda with the following usage has been removed.

CL-USER> (mapcar λ(write-to-string -) '(2 3 4)) ; lambdas
("2" "3" "4")

This begins to feel like line-noise after a while and is not ideal for readability; a better equivalent is the simple macro

CL-USER> (defmacro lm (&rest var-body)
           `(lambda ,(butlast var-body)
              ,@(last var-body)))
LM
CL-USER> (mapcar (lm o (write-to-string o)) '(2 3 4))
("2" "3" "4")

Hash-table

Since the function used for constructing hash-tables is now configurable (via reader:*hash-table-function*), the first input to the hash-table may be interpreted as the equality function. Thus, hash-table syntax can take an even (with default test cl:equalp) or odd (with the first symbol being interpreted as the equality function) number of arguments.

Setting alists and plists

Now works for non-empty lists.

Testing

(ql:quickload "reader")
(5am:run :reader)
;; OR
(asdf:test-system "reader")

Emacs Indentation Support

(modify-syntax-entry ?\[ "(]" lisp-mode-syntax-table)
(modify-syntax-entry ?\] ")[" lisp-mode-syntax-table)
(modify-syntax-entry ?\{ "(}" lisp-mode-syntax-table)
(modify-syntax-entry ?\} "){" lisp-mode-syntax-table)
(define-key paredit-mode-map (kbd "{") 'paredit-open-curly)
(define-key paredit-mode-map (kbd "}") 'paredit-close-curly)
(global-set-key (kbd "C-S-l") (lambda () ; for inserting lambda
                                (interactive)
                                (insert-char (aref (symbol-name 'λ) 0))))
(setq paredit-space-for-delimiter-predicates
      (list (lambda (endp delimiter)
              (not (and (eql ?\( delimiter)
                        (member (char-before (point))
                                '(?\@ ?λ))))))))
(set-language-environment "UTF-8")

Motivation: paredit curly brace matching in swank-clojure repl - Stack OverFlow

Known Issues

Known issues include aligning hash-tables without first-element-as-key:

{"hello" 1
         "world" 2}

A work-around is to specify the test as the first element, and let that default exist for one-liners:

{equal "hello" 1
       "world" 2}
{"hello" 1 "world" 2}

Comments

• cl-interpol is a prominent library providing perl / shell-like string interpolation facilities.
• cl-json can be used for parsing JSON.