Re: What's the meaning of the percent sign in variable names

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi Luis!

Luis Felipe <luis.felipe.la@protonmail.com> skribis:

> Are all these constants (%base-packages, for example)? Is this a Guix
> convention or does it come from Guile?

To complement Leo’s answer…  The ‘%’ convention comes from Guile, which
may have borrowed it from other Schemes.  Initially, it was meant to
read as “sys” (“system”), as can be seen in libguile, meaning that a
percent-binding somehow belongs to “the system”: ‘%load-path’,
‘%make-void-port’, ‘%load-hook’, etc.

In Guix it’s used with an extending meaning, typically for variables
holding Guixy constants: ‘%base-packages’, ‘%setuid-programs’,
‘%desktop-services’, etc.  I hope it makes some sense!

Ludo’.