add check-equal?/values and check-match/values

[AlexKnauth]

Related to #71. I put check-equal?/values in a separate form because check-equal? is meant to be a function-like check, and adding multiple values to the existing check-equal? would require it to evaluate it's arguments differently from how a function would.

[samth]

I don't understand why it would have to evaluate anything differently.

[AlexKnauth]

It has to evaluate them in the context of call-with-values, so the function form can't have the same behavior.

[rfindler]

What expression do you expect people to evaluate that distinguishes these two contexts? Yes, I agree there are theoretically some (things that call continuation-mark-set->context, for example), but they don't seem like something that would ever show up inside a call to check-equal?.

[jackfirth]

The check-eq? and check-eqv? checks need this too right? I'd find it strange if they weren't consistent with check-equal?.

What about adding a values-list syntax to define-check that let you specify that some argument positions should "capture" multiple values:

(define-check (check-equal? (values-list actual) (values-list expected))
  ... compare actual and expected, which are each lists of values ...)

;; captures the values returned by both expressions and passes them as lists
(check-equal? (values 1 2) (values 1 3))

That way, the equal checks don't need to use define-syntax and manually add check infos. And rackunit could not export the values-list syntax binding to hide this feature from clients if that was desired.

[AlexKnauth]

But they still have to be almost "full-fledged" macros, in that they can't be function-like anymore. It won't be equivalent to say (#%app check-equal? actual-expr expected-expr) versus (check-equal? actual-expr expected-expr) if we do this.

[jackfirth]

I think it's a reasonable tradeoff. It's purely additive; no existing uses of check-equal? would break as a result of adding this feature. Even existing higher order uses will continue to work as they always have.

[AlexKnauth]

And what if someone is testing functions that look at continuation-mark stuff?

(Edit: I can't find a way to detect it other than looking at the error message, so far.)

[jackfirth]

Would that work now?

[rfindler]

I don't think that supporting people writing (#%app check-equal? ...) is important, compared to being able to support people writing (check-equal? (f 1) (values 1 2)) for functions that return multiple values. Not even close!

And the earlier distinguishing context I gave was meant to reenforce how there aren't any interesting contexts that can distinguish them.

[AlexKnauth]

Here's something that distinguishes them:

#lang racket/base

(require rackunit)

(define fn-context (#%plain-app make-continuation-prompt-tag 'fn-context))

(define-syntax-rule (#%app f a ...)
  (#%plain-app (with-continuation-mark fn-context 'function-position f)
               (with-continuation-mark fn-context 'argument-position a)
               ...))

(define (stuff)
  (let/cc k
    (continuation-mark-set->list (continuation-marks k) fn-context)))

;; this passes:
(#%app check-equal? (stuff) '(argument-position))
;; this fails:
(check-equal?/values (stuff) '(argument-position))

(Edited to leave out unnecessary call-with-values)

[rfindler]

Well, of course that does. If you write (m check-equal? a b) you can make arbitrary changes to things. Here's another example that is just the same as yours and not something that I think is very relevant to this discussion.

#lang racket
(require rackunit)
(define-syntax-rule
  (m x ...)
  (printf "I am different because a macro rewrote me!\n"))

(m check-equal? 1 2)
(check-equal? 1 2)

[rfindler]

Put another way, in case what I wrote was not clear: your example is not really about continuation marks. Here's another example to illustrate this point.

#lang racket
(require rackunit)

(define global 1234)

(define-syntax-rule
  (m f x ...)
  (f (let ([saved-value global])
       (set! global 15)
       (begin0 x
               (set! global saved-value)))
     ...))

(m check-equal? global 1234)

(check-equal? global 1234)

I don't think this is relevant to check-equal? at all.

[jackfirth]

Do (#%app check-equal? (stuff) '(argument-position)) and (#%app check-equal?/values (stuff) '(argument-position))) have different results?

[AlexKnauth]

Okay. I just realized check-equal? itself doesn't use the #%app from its use site but the app from its definition site.

[AlexKnauth]

(Re: @jackfirth's comment) The check-equal?/values form wouldn't make sense as a function expression because functions can't accept multiple-valued arguments. I didn't want to pretend that check-equal?/values could be used as a function so I made it a pure macro.

[jackfirth]

I don't see why it can't act as a function when used higher order, it would just lose its magical value-capturing abilities (and any "value-list" argument would be a list of one value)

[rfindler]

@AlexKnauth I see what you mean now: if check-equal? picked up the #%app from the use site, then your examples and line of inquiry make sense to me.

But even if it did, I'd say that changing it is still a good idea. I don't think that examples like you posted are ones that we need to worry about.