I'm working with the Racket macro extension syntax-id-rules
, that some other Scheme implementations provide under the name identifier-syntax
. These let you specify macro expansions that will happen even when the defined identifier isn't in head position. So for example:
(define hidden #f)
(define-syntax proxy
(syntax-id-rules (set!)
[(set! proxy v) (set! hidden v)]
[proxy hidden]))
will set up the identifier proxy
to be a proxy for hidden
. This is a useless example, but it illustrates the usage.
I find myself in a situation where I want a global ordinary macro, let's call it foo
, that I want to override in some cases where I'm using an identifier macro like proxy
. That is, I want to be able to do something like this:
(define-syntax foo
(syntax-rules ()
[(foo arg ...) 'default]))
(define hidden #f)
(define-syntax proxy
(syntax-id-rules (foo set!)
[(foo proxy arg ...) 'special]
[(set! proxy v) (set! hidden v)]
[proxy hidden]))
(foo proxy) ; should return 'special
But in fact the last line returns 'default
, because the foo
macro gets expanded before the proxy
one.
Any ideas how I might achieve something along these lines, but with the proxy
identifier macro overriding the default macro definition for foo
? I'm not committed to the above architecture specifically.
Added: This isn't for any real-world usage, but part of a demonstration of a theoretical point in formal semantics.
@soegaard explained it perfectly. You can't do what you want directly without modifying the macro expander.
To extend @soegaard's answer, here is a way to simulate what you are asking for. It essentially does a "double-dispatch" macro expansion. As soegaard noted though, there's probably a more idiomatic way to achieve what you want, depending on your goals.
#lang racket
(require (for-syntax syntax/parse))
(begin-for-syntax
(define (special-condition? id)
(and (identifier? id)
(regexp-match #rx"^p" ; starts with "p"
(symbol->string (syntax->datum id))))))
(define-syntax foo
(syntax-parser
[(_ special-case arg ...)
#:when (special-condition? #'special-case)
#'(special-case 'hidden-special-case-tag arg ...)]
; else
[(_ arg ...) #''default]))
(define hidden #f)
(define-syntax proxy
(syntax-id-rules (quote set!)
[(proxy (quote hidden-special-case-tag) arg ...) 'special]
[(set! proxy v) (set! hidden v)]
[(proxy arg ...) 'other]
[proxy hidden]))
(foo non-proxy) ; => 'default
(foo proxy) ; => 'special
(proxy) ; => 'other
proxy ; => #f
(set! proxy #t)
proxy ; => #t