Next: Loop Examples, Up: Loop Facility
The cl-loop
macro essentially creates a mini-language within
Lisp that is specially tailored for describing loops. While this
language is a little strange-looking by the standards of regular Lisp,
it turns out to be very easy to learn and well-suited to its purpose.
Since cl-loop
is a macro, all parsing of the loop language
takes place at byte-compile time; compiled cl-loop
s are just
as efficient as the equivalent while
loops written longhand.
A loop construct consists of a series of clauses, each introduced by a symbol like
for
ordo
. Clauses are simply strung together in the argument list ofcl-loop
, with minimal extra parentheses. The various types of clauses specify initializations, such as the binding of temporary variables, actions to be taken in the loop, stepping actions, and final cleanup.Common Lisp specifies a certain general order of clauses in a loop:
(loop name-clause var-clauses... action-clauses...)The name-clause optionally gives a name to the implicit block that surrounds the loop. By default, the implicit block is named
nil
. The var-clauses specify what variables should be bound during the loop, and how they should be modified or iterated throughout the course of the loop. The action-clauses are things to be done during the loop, such as computing, collecting, and returning values.The Emacs version of the
cl-loop
macro is less restrictive about the order of clauses, but things will behave most predictably if you put the variable-binding clauseswith
,for
, andrepeat
before the action clauses. As in Common Lisp,initially
andfinally
clauses can go anywhere.Loops generally return
nil
by default, but you can cause them to return a value by using an accumulation clause likecollect
, an end-test clause likealways
, or an explicitreturn
clause to jump out of the implicit block. (Because the loop body is enclosed in an implicit block, you can also use regular Lispcl-return
orcl-return-from
to break out of the loop.)
The following sections give some examples of the loop macro in action, and describe the particular loop clauses in great detail. Consult the second edition of Steele for additional discussion and examples.