Learning AI: csx72 » LISP's Local Global Trick

LISP's Local Global Trick

This is a Lisp page, written Sun Jan 20 14:29:21 PST 2008.

Globals are good; they stop you having to pass around big parameter lists.

Globals are bad; side-effects from one function can ruin another.

With LISP's local-global trick you can have it both ways. A global is copied to a local temporary that can be referenced by called functions called from some master function. BUT, and here's the the trick, all changes made by this sub-functions just go away when they terminate.

Here's how it works. First, define global parameter:

(defparameter *x* 1)

Now, define a main function that calls some worker function.

(defun main()
  (format t "before ~a~%" *x*)
  (worker)
  (format t "after ~a~%" *x*)
)

The worker changes the scope of the global using the "&optional" command, then calls some underlings to get the job done.

(defun worker (&optional (*x* *x*))
  (underling)
)

(defun underling ()
  (format t "during1 ~a~%" *x*)
  (dotimes (i 3)
    (incf *x* i)
    (format t "during2 ~a~%" *x*)))

Now, when the worker is call, all the changes made by the underlings disappear when the work is done. Observe in the following how the underling makes many changes to "*x*" which are gone when the worker terminates:

CL-USER> (main)
before 1
during1 1
during2 1
during2 2
during2 4
after 1

LISP's Local Global Trick

cs472 / cs572