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120 The DECLARE forms are for the benefit of the MacLISP compiler, which will process the result of compiling this file (i.e. RABBIT compiling itself). The first few forms are concerned with switch settings, allocation of memory within the MacLISP compiler, and loading of auxiliary functions which must be available at compile time. The large block of SPECIAL declarations contains the name of every SCHEME function in the file. This is necessary because the run-time representation of a global variable is as a MacLISP SPECIAL variable. The compiled function objects will reside in MacLlSP value cells, and SCHEME functions refer to each other through these cells. The second set of SPECIAL declarations (variables whose names begin and end with a "*") specify variables used globally by RABBIT. These fall into three categories: variables containing properties of the SCHEME interpreter which are parameters for the compiler (e.g. **ARGUMENT-REGISTERS**); switches, primarily for debugging purposes, used to control certain compiler operations (e.g.

  • FUDGE*); and own variables for certain functions, used to generate objects or

gather statistics (e.g. *GENTEMPNUM* and *DEPROGNIFY-COUNT*).

The PROCLAIM forms are to RABBIT as DECLARE forms are to the MacLISP

compiler. These provide declarations to the incarnation of RABBIT which is compiling the file. The subforms of a PROCLAIM form are executed by RABBIT when it encounters the form in a file being compiled. (We will see later how this is done.)