[Chicken-users] Re: A few questions

[Hans Nowak]

First of all, thanks to everybody who replied.

Re docstrings: My next question would be, is it possible to add them (e.g. as a 
library)?  And would it be desirable to do so?  Apparently it is already 
possible to write code like:

(define (foo x)
  "docstring for foo"
  ...body...)

It just has no effect, currently (or so I assume).  Would it be possible to 
write a function/macro/etc like this:

> (get-docstring foo)
"docstring for foo"

...?

The reason I am asking is that someone suggested I should write doctest for 
Scheme.  For those not familiar with it, this is a Python module that allows you 
to add tests to docstrings.  It does so by emulating the interactive 
interpreter; e.g. you could write:

(define (plus a b)
  "Add two numbers.

   >>> (plus 2 2)
   4
   >>> (plus 1 2 3)
   Error: bad argument count
  "
  ...implementation...)

More here:

http://docs.python.org/lib/module-doctest.html

Does Chicken have something similar?  It doesn't have docstrings, but it would 
still be possible to write unit tests like you're typing them in the REPL.  I 
did not find an egg that does this kind of testing, though.  Does such a library 
exist?  Would it be useful to have?


Re using files as modules and scripts: I just found csi's -ss option, which 
pretty much does what I want, although in a different way.

Anyway, I have another question: when you define a function, how much 
"introspection" is possible?  E.g. from another thread ("Runtime arity") I 
learned that it's possible to get the function's signature.  Is there also a way 
to get e.g. the function's body?  (My guess is, probably not, but I thought I'd 
ask.)

Thanks,

--Hans