First class Contexts
“Context is king, I shouted, then ran from the king’s guard.”
Although Rye’s contexts are simple structures, we have multiple functions for creating them and it seems even more uses for them. Naming of functions tries to be intent based, but we’re still exploring the area so it can change.
If you came directly to this page, maybe first have a look at context basics.
To recap: Context is used as scope for Rye words. It’s also just another value type in Rye. Structurally, context is a dictionary of words and values, an optional link to the parent context and an optional docstring.
Basic context
The most common way to create or just use the features of a context is by function context. Function evaluates a block of code in it’s newly created context and returns the context itself. It sets contexts parent to the current-context when created.
pos-printer: context {
codepage: "latin2"
out: fn { x } { prn x }
crlf: does { print "" }
info: does { out "Cp: " + codepage , crlf }
}
Context path
We can use a context path, another literal value type in Rye, to address values inside a context. Evaluator uses cpath in the same manner as it uses words. If a word in a context is bound to a function it evaluates it, if not it returns the value bound to it.
print pos-printer/codepage
; prints: w1250
pos-printer/info
; prints: Cp: w1250
pos-printer/out "Hello world"
; prints: Hello world (no newline)
pos-printer/crlf
; prints newline
No direct changes
We can’t use the equivalent of set or mod-words, to change the values inside a context. If you come from Rebol, this is possible there, but Rye tries to keep a much tighter control on modification in general. Rye only allows direct changes in the current context, but not in sub-contexts and not in the parent contexts. You can only send messages i.e. make function calls there.
pos-printer/name: "POS printer"
; Loader error - this syntax doesn't exist
pos-printer/codepage:: "utf-8"
; Loader error - this syntax doesn't exist
Evaluation
In a context
Besides calling into a context with cpath, we can also just evaluate our code in a context.
Do is a general Rye function that does the Rye dialect. A variation do\in exists that does code in a specific context.
Well, not directly inside a context, since we believe things are better kept
separate, not mashed together. Code is still evaluated in it’s current context (like with do) but with specified context being a parent.
do\in pos-printer {
print codepage
loop 3 { out "Hello" , crlf }
info
}
; prints:
; latin2
; Hello
; Hello
; Hello
; Cp: latin2
So how does this work? Evaluator finds values of out, clrf, info and codepage in it’s now parent context, the context pos-printer that we created above. It evaluates the first 3 because they are functions and retrieves the last.
But it found print and loop in the parent context of the parent context, where all the built-ins are defined.
We can use functions ls (list) and lsp (list parent) to demonstrate this.
name: "Jim"
do\in pos-printer { out name }
do\in pos-printer { ls } ; list current context
; lists *name* and *pos-printer* ...
do\in pos-printer { lsp } ; list parent
; lists codepage, crlf, out and info
Builtin contexts
Rye also comes with some built-in contexts. To ensure we can use short math related words to do math operations math built-in functions are defined in their own context.
We can use words from such contexts using cpaths (math/pi, math/sin) like in the next example.
deg->rad: fn { d } { * math/pi / 180 }
for { 0 90 180 270 } { .deg->rad .math/sin .print }
; prints:
; 0.00000
; 1.00000
; 0.00000
; -1.00000
Or, if we use a lot of words from math context we rather just evaluate our code with do\in:
pipe-radius: 3.0919
do\in math { pi * pipe-radius .sq |round\to 2 } :area
; returns: [Decimal: 30.030000]
More ways to create contexts
Extends function
Function extends accepts another context in addition to a block of code and sets the accepted context as a parent to a newly created one.
This is a general mechanism for creating contexts with specific parents, but it also behaves sort of like class\object inheritance. But Rye is not an OO language, so this is not a pattern around which we usually structure code.
animal: context { eat: does { print "I eat" } }
dog: extends animal { voice: does { print "Woof!" } }
cat: extends animal { voice: does { print "Meow" } }
do\in dog { eat , voice }
; prints:
; I eat
; Woof!
cat/voice
; prints: Meow
Rye is context oriented language, where words get meaning in specific contexts, and we can construct contexts in a way that makes the most sense. In code below context circle isn’t viewed as a subclass of math, but the programmer decided
that it makes sense to define context circle with context math as the first parent.
rye .needs { math } ; check if we have math module built-in
circle: extends math {
circuference: fn { r } { 2 * pi * r }
area: fn { r } { pi * r .sq }
}
print circle/area 10
; prints: 314.159265
do\in circle { print circuference 10 }
; prints: 62.831853
This is a way of giving our code access to words defined in math context, and giving these words a priority for this particular code.
Private function
Function private uses a context for a completely different reason. It creates a new context and executes code in it, but just returns the last value, not the context.
This is useful if we need the result of some operations, but we don’t want the intermediate words/variables to pollute our working context.
private {
12 * 5 :a
a - 12 :b
a + b
} :result
print result
; prints 108
ls
; Context:
; result: [Integer: 108]
Isolate function
We finally arrived at the function that I’m the most excited about. Isolate creates a context and during the construction of it, the current context is the parent. But the resulting context then has no parent so it’s isolated from everything.
Code evaluated in a resulting context can call only the functions that are defined in this isolated context and nothing else.
This wouldn’t be that exciting, but you have to remember that every active component, also all language constructs like if loop fn ... in Rye are just functions.
Imagine having a framework, but you provide a specially crafted context, for the framework programmer to use. Or a distributed computing platform where code is sent between processes, but code is evaluated in such specialized, safe, isolated contexts. So your peer or a client isn’t given just endpoints, but a dialect that is composable and can have the full power of a language, or just a very limited subset of it.
Let’s create an isolate that represents an ok-printer. It exposes only two of Rye’s built-in functions, print and prn as pr and p.
ok-printer: isolate { pr: ?print p: ?prn }
do\in ok-printer { p "*" p "*" p "*" pr "" pr "OK." }
; prints:
; ***
; OK.
; it shouldn't have access to anything else in Rye
do\in ok-printer { print "OK?" }
; Error: word 'print' not found
do\in ok-printer { if 1 { pr "ER!" } }
; Error: word 'if' not found
msg: "WT?"
do\in ok-printer { pr msg }
; Error: word 'msg' not found
Now we will add our context the ability to do basic looping. So our dialect can avoid some repetition.
ok-printer:: isolate { pr: ?print p: ?prn lo: ?loop }
do\in ok-printer { lo 3 { p "*" } pr "" pr "OK." }
; prints:
; ***
; OK.
We want to add function nl, to avoid printing an empty string for a newline. This is not a direct built-in, but our custom Rye function. This function uses just words from isolated context itself, so ordinary fn or does works.
ok-printer:: isolate { pr: ?print p: ?prn lo: ?loop nl: does { pr "" } }
do\in ok-printer { lo 3 { p "*" } nl pr "ER!" }
; prints:
; ***
; ER!
Now lets give our remote programmer that uses the context (for example) the ability to create her own functions.
ok-printer:: isolate {
pr: ?print
p: ?prn
lo: ?loop
f: ?fn
nl: does { pr "" }
}
do\in ok-printer { ln: f { c } { lo 3 { p c } } , ln "-" nl pr "QL!" }
; prints:
; ---
; QL!
Now we wish to expose a function, but contrary to nl above, this function will use Rye’s regular functions that aren’t available inside a context in it’s body. Well that is not a problem. We already saw rye can create functions that are executed in specific contexts, so we use that mechanism.
ok-printer:: isolate {
pr: ?print
p: ?prn
nl: does { pr "" }
; emphasize
em: fn\in { m } parent {
.print ,
produce length? m "" { .concat tail m 1 } \print
}
}
do\in ok-printer {
em "CU/" em "BY!"
}
; prints:
; CU/
; ///
; BY!
; !!!
Functions in specific contexts
Fn\in
Similar to do\in you can also define a function that is evaluated in a specific context. You create these function with fn\in. The body of the function is evaluated in it’s own context, like a normal function, but with parent set to the given context.
me: context { name: "Jim" }
introduce-to: fn\in { to } me { print [ "Hi" to ", I'm" name ] }
introduce-to "Jane"
; prints: Hi Jane , I'm Jim
introduce-to "Bob"
; prints: Hi Bob , I'm Jim
Or if we use the context ok-printer we defined above
print-report: fn\in { title msg } ok-printer { em title , pr msg }
print-report "BRKNG!" "all-ok"
; prints:
; BRKNG!
; !!!!!!
; all-ok
Closures
And where do closures fit into this? A closure in Rye is just a specific use of the function fn\in with the current context. We do have a helper
function closure, but we get the same result if we do:
make-adder: fn { a } { fn\in { b } current { a + b } }
add5: make-adder 5
add10: make-adder 10
a: 30
add5 5
; returns: 10
add10 5
; returns: 15
Contexts and Console
Above, we’ve seen a lot of what first class contexts can do and be used for. But context is also something we can just navigate in similar way as you navigate directories on your hard drive - it’s all just information anyway - with our Rye Console.
; list current context
ls
; might be empty or not, depends if you were evaluating code above
; list parent context for words matching "math"
lsp\ "math"
; prints:
; Context:
; math: [ ....
; .... ]
; change context to math
cc math
; list current context (now in math)
ls
; prints:
; Context:
; abs: [BFunction(1): ...]
; acos: [BFunction(): ...]
; ...
; Use the functions in the math context, calc is the math *dialect*
calc { abs ( 10 - 30 ) + 5 * 3 }
; change context back to parent (our initial context)
ccp
; makes and changes to new context todo
mkcc 'todo
; defines words in this context
todos: { "fix A" }
add: fn1 { .append! 'todos }
; list this todo subcontext
ls
; try using it
add "solve B"
display todos
; change back to parent
ccp
; call a function on it from our initial context
todo/add "improve C"
display todo/todos
; etc ...