finding procedure definitions

finding procedure definitions

[Scott N. Walck]

Guile folks,

Is there a way to ask for the definition of a procedure or to find the
source code for a procedure?

For example, "symbol" is a guile procedure.  I can see that by typing
its name.

guile> symbol
#<procedure symbol args>

But how can I find more information, such as its definition, including
what types of arguments it expects and what it does and returns?  I
don't see symbol listed in the Guile Reference manual index.  I'm not
sure where to look in the source code.

Thanks,

Scott

Re: finding procedure definitions

[dsmich]

---- "Scott N. Walck" <walck@lvc.edu> wrote: 
> Guile folks,
> 
> Is there a way to ask for the definition of a procedure or to find the
> source code for a procedure?

Yes.

> For example, "symbol" is a guile procedure.  I can see that by typing
> its name.
> 
> guile> symbol
> #<procedure symbol args>
> 
> But how can I find more information, such as its definition, including
> what types of arguments it expects and what it does and returns?  I
> don't see symbol listed in the Guile Reference manual index.  I'm not
> sure where to look in the source code.

$ guile
guile> symbol
#<procedure symbol args>
guile> (procedure-source symbol)
(lambda args (string->symbol (apply string args)))
guile> 

This only works for Scheme, not for primitives written in C.

-Dale