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Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: declaim? proclaim?
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From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net>
Message-ID: <3223022793121740@naggum.net>
Organization: Naggum Software, Oslo, Norway
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Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 12:06:30 GMT
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* Tim Bradshaw <tfb@cley.com>
| I thought about this a bit, and I'm now confused.  Imagine a situation
| like this:
| 
|     (defvar *foo* (big-complicated-function))
| 
|     (declaim (type fixnum) *foo*)
| 
| Can this code be correct?

  Yes.  It would be even if you switched the two top-level forms.

| I'm not sure it can, because at compile time, *FOO* is not yet defined

  Of course it is.  defvar must affect the compilation environment at least
  to the extent that it remembers that *foo* is a special variable.
  However, it does not necessarily have a _value_ until load-time.

| So the type declaration can't (or may not) be true at compile time, I
| think.

  The declarations are associated with the symbols, not with the bindings,
  but they affect the bindings because of the declarations associated with
  the symbol.

///
-- 
  In a fight against something, the fight has value, victory has none.
  In a fight for something, the fight is a loss, victory merely relief.