Anaphora Documentation

Anaphoric macros provide implicit bindings for various operations. Extensive use of anaphoric macros is not good style, and probably makes you go blind as well — there's a reason why Anaphora claims to be from Hell.

Anaphora provides two families of anaphoric macros, which can be identified by their names and packages (both families are also exported from the package ANAPHORA). The implicitly-bound symbol ANAPHORA:IT is also exported from all three packages.

Basic anaphora

Exported from package ANAPHORA-BASIC

These bind their first argument to IT via LET. In case of COND all clauses have their test-values bound to IT. Variants: AAND, ALET, APROG1, AIF, ACOND, AWHEN, ACASE, ACCASE, AECASE, ATYPECASE, ACTYPECASE, and AETYPECASE.

Symbol-macro anaphora

Exported from package ANAPHORA-SYMBOL

These bind their first argument (unevaluated) to IT via SYMBOL-MACROLET. Variants: SOR, SLET, SIF, SCOND, SUNLESS, SWHEN, SCASE, SCCASE, SECASE, STYPECASE, SCTYPECASE, SETYPECASE. Also: ASIF, which binds via LET for the then-clause, and SYMBOL-MACROLET for the else-clause.


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