Re: Multiple values passed as single argument to procedure

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> writes:

> I'm sorry David, but _everything_ that you wrote below is incorrect.

Well, let me try again.  It's not all that easy to understand.

> David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> writes:
>
>> Chris Marusich <cmmarusich@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> I think I'm missing something here.  In (list (f)), the call to f
>>> certainly looks like it's happening at a position that one might
>>> intuitively call a "tail" position.
>>
>> It is,
>
> No it isn't.
>
>> but list does not take multiple values
>
> Yes it does.  'list' accepts an arbitrary number of values
> (arguments).

In my book, multiple values/arguments are different things but I admit
that this is a quagmire to me and strictly speaking what I call
"multiple values" (namely the unmitigated return value from calling
values) never occurs in the position of an argument (at least when not
looking at the C API and/or Guile 1.x).

dak@lola:/usr/local/tmp/lilypond$ guile-2.0 
GNU Guile 2.0.13
Copyright (C) 1995-2016 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Guile comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type `,show w'.
This program is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions; type `,show c' for details.

Enter `,help' for help.
scheme@(guile-user)> (list (values 1 2 3))
$1 = (1)
scheme@(guile-user)> 

>> and thus discards additional values returned by f.
>
> 'list' does not discard anything.  The additional values are discarded
> before 'list' is called.

Ok.  Because a function call cannot take multiple values.  It does take
multiple _arguments_.

A function call can appear to return multiple values by using call/cc
(which is essentially what (values ...) does) and the construct
call-with-values can salvage them as long as they are only passed
through tail calls (or rather tail returns):

(call-with-values
  (lambda () (call/cc (lambda (c) (c 1 2 3))))
  list) => (1 2 3)

Basically call-with-values is a mechanism that lets the continuation
delivered by call/cc be a function accepting multiple arguments.  An
ordinary function call doesn't.

> I will try to clarify all of this in another message.

Well, I probably messed up things a whole lot more now.  But at least it
should be an excellent opportunity for correcting the half-truths and
misconceptions that Scheme's procedure/continuation model might inspire
in people (like me) without a firm grasp of its concepts.

-- 
David Kastrup