Kurt Nørmark
Department of Computer Science, Aalborg University, Denmark

Abstract Previous lecture Index References Contents

Although we use Scheme for functional programming, Scheme can be used for imperative programming as well. In this side track we will take a look at this aspect of the language.

The most fundamental imperative Scheme construct is the assignment set!

Other imperative constructs: (begin e1 ... en) The iterative do control structure The input output procedures The list, string and vector mutators

As a notational convention, most imperative abstractions in Scheme ends with "!"

References Scheme assignment begin do Input output procedures

List mutators Slide Annotated slide Contents Index References Textbook

Besides the list constructor cons and the list selectors car and cdr there are also list mutators called set-car! and set-cdr!

The list mutator procedures: The command (set-car! x y) changes the value of the car position of the cons cell referred by x. The car position is assigned to y The command (set-cdr! x y) changes the value of the cdr position of the cons cell referred by x. The cdr position is assigned to y Using the list mutators it is possible to make circular structures

Without use of the list mutators, and with use of structural equivalence predicates, it is not possible to tell the difference between a list structure and a copy of the list structure If we make use of list mutators we can tell the difference between a list structure, LS, and a copy of LS. The way to do it is to mutate LS and observe that the copy is not changed. Using only the functional subset of Scheme (and disregarding the very discriminating equality predicates such as eq? and eqv?) a copy of LS serves the same purposes as LS itself.

Reference List and pairs in Scheme

String mutators Slide Annotated slide Contents Index References Textbook

A string can be mutated by the string-set! and the string-fill! procedures

The string mutator procedures: (string-set! str k chr) changes character number k in str to chr (string-fill! str chr) changes every character in str to chr

There are similar functions that mutate the elements in vectors

References R5RS: Strings Scheme R5RS: Vectors in Scheme

LAML needs imperative features for file IO, handling of LAML context information, and high level commands

Overview of imperative features in LAML: The procedures write-text-file and read-text-file At a higher level procedures such as write-html which surrounds many HTML mirror documents in Scheme Many high level procedures which represent tools or commands Such as xml-parse, xml-pp, and schemedoc File handling in general Definition of LAML context information fake-startup-parameters, laml-cd, ...

In some situations we have internally in LAML used imperative patching of functional programs, because functional patching has been too difficult and too time consuming Unfortunately, we have not systematically used the 'exclamation mark' naming convention of LAML procedures.

References Reading of writing of text files The Text Collection and Skipping Library LAML tools and commands

Chapter 9: Imperative programming in Scheme
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