Re: Real predicate in C

[Marius Vollmer]

Hilaire Fernandes <address@hidden> writes:

> It looks like the real? predicate is not implemented in the C interface, 
> I got the following error when trying to use it:
> 
> drgeo_script.cc:141: implicit declaration of function `int gh_real_p(...)'

The 'real?' predicate is available from the scm_ interface, but not
from the gh_ interface.

You can use

    SCM_NFALSEP (scm_real_p (OBJ))

to test whether OBJ is a real number.  (Note that integers are real too.)

The funny SCM_NFALSEP means "not false?" and must be used since
scm_real_p returns a Scheme boolean (that is, either #t or #f) and not
a C boolean (either 1 or 0).

The SCM_REALP macro only tests whether some number has a floating
point representation, it is not the same as scm_real_p.

(We are not really happy about this situation, either.)

In general, the 'primitive procedures' of the Scheme side are all
available on the C side, in the scm_ interface.  The Guile reference
manual talks about this in the "API overview" node.

For example, 'real?' is a primitive procedure and its C name is
"scm_real_p".  It takes one SCM argument and returns a SCM result.
You can check whether it is a primitive by printing it from the repl:

    guile> real?
    #<primitive-procedure real?>
    guile> (define (foo) #t)
    guile> foo
    #<procedure foo ()>