add vm-abort-continuation-hook, vm-restore-continuation-hook

[bpt/guile.git] / emacs / gds-tutorial.txt

;; Welcome to the GDS tutorial!

;; This tutorial teaches the use of GDS by leading you through a set
;; of examples where you actually use GDS, in Emacs, along the way.
;; To get maximum benefit, therefore, you should be reading this
;; tutorial in Emacs.

;; ** GDS setup

;; The first thing to do, if you haven't already, is to load the GDS
;; library into Emacs.  The Emacs Lisp expression for this is:

(require 'gds)

;; So, if you don't already have this in your .emacs, either add it
;; and then restart Emacs, or evaluate it just for this Emacs session
;; by moving the cursor to just after the closing parenthesis and
;; typing `C-x C-e'.

;; (Note that if you _have_ already loaded GDS, and you type `C-x C-e'
;; after this expression, you will see a *Guile Evaluation* window
;; telling you that the evaluation failed because `require' is
;; unbound.  Don't worry; this is not a problem, and the rest of the
;; tutorial should still work just fine.)

;; ** Help

;; GDS makes it easy to access the Guile help system when working on a
;; Scheme program in Emacs.  For example, suppose that you are writing
;; code that uses list-ref, and need to remind yourself about
;; list-ref's arguments ...

(define (penultimate l)
  (list-ref

;; Just place the cursor on the word "list-ref" and type `C-h g RET'.
;; Try it now!

;; If GDS is working correctly, a window should have popped up above
;; or below showing the Guile help for list-ref.

;; You can also do an "apropos" search through Guile's help.  If you
;; couldn't remember the name list-ref, for example, you could search
;; for anything matching "list" by typing `C-h C-g' and entering
;; "list" at the minibuffer prompt.  Try doing this now: you should
;; see a longish list of Guile definitions whose names include "list".
;; As usual in Emacs, you can use `M-PageUp' and `M-PageDown' to
;; conveniently scroll the other window without having to select it.

;; The functions called by `C-h g' and `C-h C-g' are gds-help-symbol
;; and gds-apropos.  They both look up the symbol or word at point by
;; default, but that default can be overidden by typing something else
;; at the minibuffer prompt.

;; ** Completion

;; As you are typing Scheme code, you can ask GDS to complete the
;; symbol before point for you, by typing `ESC TAB'.  GDS selects
;; possible completions by matching the text so far against all
;; definitions in the Guile environment.  (This may be contrasted with
;; the "dabbrev" completion performed by `M-/', which selects possible
;; completions from the contents of Emacs buffers.  So, if you are
;; trying to complete "with-ou", to get "with-output-to-string", for
;; example, `ESC TAB' will always work, because with-output-to-string
;; is always defined in Guile's default environment, whereas `M-/'
;; will only work if one of Emacs's buffers happens to contain the
;; full name "with-output-to-string".)

;; To illustrate the idea, here are some partial names that you can
;; try completing.  For each one, move the cursor to the end of the
;; line and type `ESC TAB' to try to complete it.

list-
with-ou
with-output-to-s
mkst

;; (If you are not familiar with any of the completed definitions,
;; feel free to use `C-h g' to find out about them!)

;; ** Evaluation

;; GDS provides several ways for you to evaluate Scheme code from
;; within Emacs.

;; Just like in Emacs Lisp, a single expression in a buffer can be
;; evaluated using `C-x C-e' or `C-M-x'.  For `C-x C-e', the
;; expression is that which ends immediately before point (so that it
;; is useful for evaluating something just after you have typed it).
;; For `C-M-x', the expression is the "top level defun" around point;
;; this means the balanced chunk of code around point whose opening
;; parenthesis is in column 0.

;; Take this code fragment as an example:

(let ((x 1) (y 2))
  (let ((z (atan x y)))
    (display "Arctangent is: ")
    (display z)
    (newline)
    z))

;; If you move the cursor to the end of the (display z) line and type
;; `C-x C-e', the code evaluated is just "(display z)", which normally
;; produces an error, because z is not defined in the usual Guile
;; environment.  If, however, you type `C-M-x' with the cursor in the
;; same place, the code evaluated is the whole "(let ((x 1) (y 2))
;; ...)" kaboodle, because that is the most recent expression before
;; point that starts in column 0.

;; Try these now.  The Guile Evaluation window should pop up again,
;; and show you:
;; - the expression that was evaluated (probably abbreviated)
;; - the module that it was evaluated in
;; - anything that the code wrote to its standard output
;; - the return value(s) of the evaluation.
;; Following the convention of the Emacs Lisp and Guile manuals,
;; return values are indicated by the symbol "=>".

;; To see what happens when an expression has multiple return values,
;; try evaluating this one:

(values 'a (begin (display "hello world\n") 'b) 'c)

;; You can also evaluate a region of a buffer using `C-c C-r'.  If the
;; code in the region consists of multiple expressions, GDS evaluates
;; them sequentially.  For example, try selecting the following three
;; lines and typing `C-c C-r'.

    (display "Arctangent is: ")
    (display z)
    (newline)

;; If the code in the region evaluated isn't syntactically balanced,
;; GDS will indicate a read error, for example for this code:

  (let ((z (atan x y)))
    (display "Arctangent is: ")
    (display z)
    (newline)

;; Finally, if you want to evaluate something quickly that is not in a
;; buffer, you can use `C-c C-e' and type the code to evaluate at the
;; minibuffer prompt.  The results are popped up in the same way as
;; for code from a buffer.

;; ** Breakpoints

;; Before evaluating Scheme code from an Emacs buffer, you may want to
;; set some breakpoints in it.  With GDS you can set breakpoints in
;; Scheme code by typing `C-x SPC'.
;;
;; To see how this works, select the second line of the following code
;; (the `(format ...)' line) and type `C-x SPC'.

(for-each (lambda (x)
            (format #t "~A cubed is ~A\n" x (* x x x)))
          (iota 6))

;; The two opening parentheses in that line should now be highlighted
;; in red, to show that breakpoints have been set at the start of the
;; `(format ...)' and `(* x x x)' expressions.  Then evaluate the
;; whole for-each expression by typing `C-M-x' ...
;;
;; In the upper half of your Emacs, a buffer appears showing you the
;; Scheme stack.
;;
;; In the lower half, the `(format ...)' expression is highlighted.
;;
;; What has happened is that Guile started evaluating the for-each
;; code, but then hit the breakpoint that you set on the start of the
;; format expression.  Guile therefore pauses the evaluation at that
;; point and passes the stack (which encapsulates everything that is
;; interesting about the state of Guile at that point) to GDS.  You
;; can then explore the stack and decide how to tell Guile to
;; continue.
;;
;; - If you move your mouse over any of the identifiers in the
;;   highlighted code, a help echo (or tooltip) will appear to tell
;;   you that identifier's current value.  (Note though that this only
;;   works when the stack buffer is selected.  So if you have switched
;;   to this buffer in order to scroll down and read these lines, you
;;   will need to switch back to the stack buffer before trying this
;;   out.)
;;
;; - In the stack buffer, the "=>" on the left shows you that the top
;;   frame is currently selected.  You can move up and down the stack
;;   by pressing the up and down arrows (or `u' and `d').  As you do
;;   this, GDS will change the highlight in the lower window to show
;;   the code that corresponds to the selected stack frame.
;;
;; - You can evaluate an arbitrary expression in the local environment
;;   of the selected stack frame by typing `e' followed by the
;;   expression.
;;
;; - You can show various bits of information about the selected frame
;;   by typing `I', `A' and `S'.  Feel free to try these now, to see
;;   what they do.
;;
;; You also have control over the continuing evaluation of this code.
;; Here are some of the things you can do - please try them as you
;; read.
;;
;; - `g' tells Guile to continue execution normally.  In this case
;;   that means that evaluation will continue until it hits the next
;;   breakpoint, which is on the `(* x x x)' expression.
;;
;; - `SPC' tells Guile to continue until the next significant event in
;;   the same source file as the selected frame.  A "significant
;;   event" means either beginning to evaluate an expression in the
;;   relevant file, or completing such an evaluation, in which case
;;   GDS tells you the value that it is returning.  Pressing `SPC'
;;   repeatedly is a nice way to step through all the details of the
;;   code in a given file, but stepping over calls that involve code
;;   from other files.
;;
;; - `o' tells Guile to continue execution until the selected stack
;;   frame completes, and then to show its return value.

;; Local Variables:
;; mode: scheme
;; End: