LispWorks User Guide and Reference Manual > 8 Action Lists

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8.1 Defining and undefining action lists

Action lists are defined using the define-action-list macro, and are undefined using the undefine-action-list. It is also possible to make unnamed, unregistered lists using make-unregistered-action-list.

define-action-list

Macro

define-action-list uid &key documentation sort-time dummy-actions default-order execution-function

The define-action-list macro defines an action list.

uid is a unique identifier, and is a general lisp object, to be compared by equalp . It names the list in the global registry of lists. See make-unregistered-action-list to create unnamed, "unregistered" action-lists. The uid may be quoted, but is not required to be. It is possible, but not recommended, to define an action list with unique identifier nil . If a registered action-list with the uid already exists (that is, one which returns t when compared with equalp ), then notification and subsequent handling is controlled by the value of the *handle-existing-action-list* variable.

The documentation string allows you to provide documentation for the action list.

sort-time is a keyword specifying when added actions are sorted for the given list -- either :execute or :define-action .

dummy-actions is a list of action-names that specify placeholding actions; they cannot be executed and are constrained to the order specified in this list, for example

'(:beginning :middle :end)

default-order specifies default ordering constraints for subsequently defined action-items where no explicit ordering constraints are specified. An example is

'(:after :beginning :before :end)

execution-function specifies a user-defined function accepting arguments of the form:

( the-action-list other-args-list &rest keyword-value-pairs )

where the two required arguments are the action-list and a list of additional arguments passed to execute-actions, respectively. The remaining arguments are any number of keyword-value pairs that may be specified in the call to execute-actions. If no execution function is specified, then the default execution function will be used to execute the action-list.

undefine-action-list

Macro

undefine-action-list uid

The macro undefine-action-list flushes the specified list (and all its action-items). If the action-list specified by uid does not exist, then handling is controlled by the value of the *handle-missing-action-list* variable.

When defining an action-list, the user may provide an associated execution-function. When executing the action-list, this user-defined execution-function is used instead of the default execution-function, to map over and "execute" the action-list's action-items. The macro with-action-list-mapping provides facilities to map over action-items (that is, their corresponding "data"). In addition, the with-action-list-error-handling macro provides a simple mechanism to trap errors and print warnings while executing each action-item.

All execution-functions are required to accept arguments of the form:

(action-list other-args &rest keyword-value-pairs)

where the two required arguments are the action-list and the list of additional arguments passed to execute-actions (see above), respectively. The remaining arguments are any number of keyword-value pairs that may be specified in the call to execute-actions. See the LispWorks Reference Manual entries for with-action-list-mapping and with-action-item-error-handling for examples of execution-functions.

Actions are added to an action list using define-action, and are removed using undefine-action.

define-action

Macro

define-action name-or-list action-name data &rest specs

The macro define-action adds a new action to the list specified by name-or-list , which will be executed according to the action list's execution function.

undefine-action

Macro

undefine-action name-or-list action-name

The macro undefine-action removes the action specified by action-name from the list specified by name-or-list .


LispWorks User Guide and Reference Manual - 22 Dec 2009

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