[Chicken-users] A few questions

[Hans Nowak]

Hi,

I am studying Chicken this year (and blogging about it, as some people here
already discovered :-).  So far I have been able to figure out most things by
myself (my experience with Scheme is limited, but I'm not a *complete*
beginner), but I still have a few unanswered questions.  Maybe somebody here
can help me.  Here goes...

1. Does Chicken (or Scheme in general) support docstrings?

2. Python has a way to make the same file usable as both a module and a
script. For example:

  # foo.py

  def bar(x): ...

  if __name__ == "__main__":
      bar(42)

When run as a script, all the code is executed; when imported, you get the
definitions, but the code inside the 'if' is omitted.

Is there a way to do something similar in Chicken?  Or, in other words, is
there a way for Chicken code to tell if it's being run a script, or being
loaded as auxiliary code?

3. This is more of a technical question about something that I haven't grasped
yet.  When I define a function, I can "see" it at the toplevel, and refer to
it by name:

  #;8> (define (f x) x)
  #;9> f
  #<procedure (f x)>

But I cannot do the same thing with macros:

  #;6> (define-macro (m x) `,x)
  #;7> (m 3)
  3
  #;8> m
Error: unbound variable: m

Why is that?  There is probably a good reason why I cannot type 'm' and get
back something like '#<macro (m x)>', but what is that reason?  Also, is there
a way to get a list of defined macros?

Thanks,

--Hans
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