[gambit-list] How to save s-expressions

Mikael mikael.rcv at gmail.com
Sat Oct 27 08:38:38 EDT 2012


(write the-data (open-output-file "data.scm")) ? =)

Generally though, you're better off with with-input-file and
with-output-file , as the return of the thunk communicated explicitly to
Gambit's IO system, that the port is no longer used, i.e.
(with-input-from-file "data.scm" read) / (with-output-to-file "data.scm"
(lambda (p) (write your-data p))).

Also of course you could do (let* ((p (open-input-file "data.scm")) (d
(read p))) (close-port p) d) , but you see it's less concise. (Also, what
if read would throw an exception, clearly this variant does not come with
any finalization of p - would with-intput-from/to-file finalize them? -
anyone is free to clarify this.)

Just dropping the file handle will wait for it to garbage-collect away,
which generally is really fine but potentially could bring problems (say
that you'd unintentionally do 10 000 file operations like that prior to a
GC, that would generally cause the OS to run out of file descriptors and
you'd get more or less weird error messages).

Also note that with this kind of very high level resources, you cannot
expect them to be automatically GC:ed away. Thread objects for instance, at
least if they're running, are not GC:ed away. With file ports, I'd believe
they are. With TCP ports, not clear. Anyone is free to bring clarity to
this one too.

Best regards

2012/10/27 Richard Prescott <rdprescott at gmail.com>

> Good morning everybody,
>
> Forgive my ignorance, I am just learning.
>
> In order to embrace the "code is data" philosophy [1], I want to load and
> save data as s-expressions within files.  I figured the load using (read
> (open-input-file "data.scm")).
>
> How can I save?
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Richard
>
>
> [1]: I just learnt that it is called
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homoiconicity
> _______________________________________________
> Gambit-list mailing list
> Gambit-list at iro.umontreal.ca
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>
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