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15 Feb 2008

by Noel

Requiring up and down syntax levels

If you do any macro programming in PLT Scheme you are sure to run into the dreaded “no #%app syntax transformer is bound” error message at some point. Though puzzling, the fix is actually quite simple in almost all cases. Assuming you’re using 3.99, you either need to:

  1. (require (for-syntax scheme/base))
  2. (require (for-template scheme/base))

What the error means is that some syntax has expanded in a function application, but #%app, the PLT Scheme primitive that actually handles application, is not bound in the phase in which the syntax is being evaluated. Requiring for-syntax will bind #%app in the phase before the current evaluation phase, while requiring for-template will bind #%app in the phase after. In most cases you wantfor-syntax. However, if you are writing functions that return syntax that is then inserted into a program (such a function would be required for-syntax elsewhere) you must use the other form, to make sure the syntax has #%app available to it.

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