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    <title>Named quasi-literals</title>
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    <section class="sect1" title="Named quasi-literals" epub:type="subchapter" id="Named-quasi-literals">
      <div class="titlepage">
        <div>
          <div>
            <h2 class="title" style="clear: both">Named quasi-literals</h2>
          </div>
        </div>
      </div>
      <p>Traditional Scheme has only a few kinds of values,
and thus only a few builtin kinds of literals.
Modern Scheme allows defining new types,
so it is desirable to have a mechanism for defining literal values
for the new types.
</p>
      <p>Consider the <code class="literal"><a class="link" href="Paths.xhtml#URI-type">URI</a></code> type.
You can create a new instance of a <code class="literal">URI</code> using a
constructor function:
</p>
      <pre class="screen">(URI "http://example.com/")
</pre>
      <p>This isn’t too bad, though the double-quote characters are an ugly distraction.
However, if you need to construct the string it gets messy:
</p>
      <pre class="screen">(URI (string-append base-uri "icon.png"))
</pre>
      <p>Instead use can write:
</p>
      <pre class="screen">&amp;URI{http://example.com/}
</pre>
      <p>or:
</p>
      <pre class="screen">&amp;URI{&amp;[base-uri]icon.png}
</pre>
      <p>This syntax is translated by the Scheme reader
to the more familiar but more verbose equivalent forms:
</p>
      <pre class="screen">($construct$:URI "http://example.com/")
($construct$:URI $&lt;&lt;$ base-uri $&gt;&gt;$ "icon.png")
</pre>
      <p>So for this to work there just needs to be a definition
of <code class="literal">$construct$:URI</code>, usually a macro.
Normal scope rules apply; typically you’d define <code class="literal">$construct$:URI</code> in
a module.
</p>
      <p>The names <code class="literal">$&lt;&lt;$</code> and <code class="literal">$&gt;&gt;$</code> are bound to unique zero-length strings.
They are used to allow the implementation of <code class="literal">$construct$:URI</code>
to determine which arguments are literal and which come from
escaped expressions.
</p>
      <p>If you want to define your own <code class="literal">$construct$:<em class="replaceable"><code>tag</code></em></code>,
or to read motivation and details, see the
<a class="ulink" href="http://srfi.schemers.org/srfi-108/srfi-108.html" target="_top">SRFI 108</a> specification.
</p>
      <div class="literallayout">
        <p><a id="idm139667878584128" class="indexterm"/><span id="meta-extended-datum-literal"/><em class="replaceable"><code>extended-datum-literal</code></em> <code class="literal">::=</code><br/>
    <code class="literal"><span class="bold"><strong>&amp;</strong></span></code> <a class="link" href="Named-quasi-literals.xhtml#meta-cname"><em class="replaceable"><code>cname</code></em></a> <code class="literal"><span class="bold"><strong>{</strong></span></code> [<a class="link" href="String-literals.xhtml#meta-initial-ignored"><em class="replaceable"><code>initial-ignored</code></em></a>] <a class="link" href="Named-quasi-literals.xhtml#meta-named-literal-part"><em class="replaceable"><code>named-literal-part</code></em></a><sup>*</sup> <code class="literal"><span class="bold"><strong>}</strong></span></code><br/>
  | <code class="literal"><span class="bold"><strong>&amp;</strong></span></code> <a class="link" href="Named-quasi-literals.xhtml#meta-cname"><em class="replaceable"><code>cname</code></em></a> <code class="literal"><span class="bold"><strong>[</strong></span></code> <a class="link" href="Primitive-expression-syntax.xhtml#meta-expression"><em class="replaceable"><code>expression</code></em></a><sup>*</sup> <code class="literal"><span class="bold"><strong>]{</strong></span></code> [<a class="link" href="String-literals.xhtml#meta-initial-ignored"><em class="replaceable"><code>initial-ignored</code></em></a>] <a class="link" href="Named-quasi-literals.xhtml#meta-named-literal-part"><em class="replaceable"><code>named-literal-part</code></em></a><sup>*</sup> <code class="literal"><span class="bold"><strong>}</strong></span></code><br/>
<a id="idm139667878569888" class="indexterm"/><span id="meta-cname"/><em class="replaceable"><code>cname</code></em> <code class="literal">::=</code> <a class="link" href="Lexical-syntax.xhtml#meta-identifier"><em class="replaceable"><code>identifier</code></em></a><br/>
<a id="idm139667878567088" class="indexterm"/><span id="meta-named-literal-part"/><em class="replaceable"><code>named-literal-part</code></em> <code class="literal">::=</code><br/>
    <span class="emphasis"><em>any character except</em></span> <code class="literal"><span class="bold"><strong>&amp;</strong></span></code><span class="emphasis"><em>,</em></span> <code class="literal"><span class="bold"><strong>{</strong></span></code> <span class="emphasis"><em>or</em></span> <code class="literal"><span class="bold"><strong>}</strong></span></code><br/>
  | <code class="literal"><span class="bold"><strong>{</strong></span></code> <a class="link" href="Named-quasi-literals.xhtml#meta-named-literal-part"><em class="replaceable"><code>named-literal-part</code></em></a><sup>+</sup> <code class="literal"><span class="bold"><strong>}</strong></span></code><br/>
  | <a class="link" href="String-literals.xhtml#meta-char-ref"><em class="replaceable"><code>char-ref</code></em></a><br/>
  | <a class="link" href="String-literals.xhtml#meta-entity-ref"><em class="replaceable"><code>entity-ref</code></em></a><br/>
  | <a class="link" href="String-literals.xhtml#meta-special-escape"><em class="replaceable"><code>special-escape</code></em></a><br/>
  | <a class="link" href="String-literals.xhtml#meta-enclosed-part"><em class="replaceable"><code>enclosed-part</code></em></a><br/>
  | <a class="link" href="Named-quasi-literals.xhtml#meta-extended-datum-literal"><em class="replaceable"><code>extended-datum-literal</code></em></a><br/>
</p>
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