7.1.19 Records

(require 'record)

The Record package provides a facility for user to define their own record data types.

Function: make-record-type type-name field-names

Returns a record-type descriptor, a value representing a new data type disjoint from all others. The type-name argument must be a string, but is only used for debugging purposes (such as the printed representation of a record of the new type). The field-names argument is a list of symbols naming the fields of a record of the new type. It is an error if the list contains any duplicates. It is unspecified how record-type descriptors are represented.

Function: record-constructor rtd [field-names]

Returns a procedure for constructing new members of the type represented by rtd. The returned procedure accepts exactly as many arguments as there are symbols in the given list, field-names; these are used, in order, as the initial values of those fields in a new record, which is returned by the constructor procedure. The values of any fields not named in that list are unspecified. The field-names argument defaults to the list of field names in the call to make-record-type that created the type represented by rtd; if the field-names argument is provided, it is an error if it contains any duplicates or any symbols not in the default list.

Function: record-predicate rtd

Returns a procedure for testing membership in the type represented by rtd. The returned procedure accepts exactly one argument and returns a true value if the argument is a member of the indicated record type; it returns a false value otherwise.

Function: record-accessor rtd field-name

Returns a procedure for reading the value of a particular field of a member of the type represented by rtd. The returned procedure accepts exactly one argument which must be a record of the appropriate type; it returns the current value of the field named by the symbol field-name in that record. The symbol field-name must be a member of the list of field-names in the call to make-record-type that created the type represented by rtd.

Function: record-modifier rtd field-name

Returns a procedure for writing the value of a particular field of a member of the type represented by rtd. The returned procedure accepts exactly two arguments: first, a record of the appropriate type, and second, an arbitrary Scheme value; it modifies the field named by the symbol field-name in that record to contain the given value. The returned value of the modifier procedure is unspecified. The symbol field-name must be a member of the list of field-names in the call to make-record-type that created the type represented by rtd.

In May of 1996, as a product of discussion on the rrrs-authors mailing list, I rewrote record.scm to portably implement type disjointness for record data types.

As long as an implementation’s procedures are opaque and the record code is loaded before other programs, this will give disjoint record types which are unforgeable and incorruptible by R4RS procedures.

As a consequence, the procedures record?, record-type-descriptor, record-type-name.and record-type-field-names are no longer supported.