Class 37: Input and Output

Held: Monday, 7 April 2003

Summary: Today we consider how to make Scheme do input and output.

Related Pages:

• EBoard.
• Reading on Input.
• Reading on Output.
• Lab on Input and Output in Scheme.

Assignments

• Read Files in Scheme.

Notes:

• Are there any final questions on exam 2?
• Friday at Saints' Rest confirmed. Admissions seems really happy that I've said that two admitted students can come.
• Extra credit for attending Fleeting Fictions. Sarah Fullmer will provide more details.
• What are your feelings on the Gimp stuff from last week? Should I do it next semester? Should I make it the focus of the class?

Overview:

• Interactive programs.
• Output in Scheme.
• Input in Scheme.
• Lab.

Interactive Programs

• In our traditional usage of Scheme, we define procedures and then ask Scheme to evaluate one or more expressions.
• Note that this model does not follow our traditional uses of computing, in which we start a program (e.g., by typing its name in the shell) and then interact with it.
• In the simplest interactive model, a program repeatedly queries someone for information, the person enters the information, and the program
• To match this model, we need to figure out how to get input from the user and generate output for the user to read.

Program Output

• You're already seen one procedure for producing output: display.
  • (display val) displays a value, eliminating the quotation marks from around strings.
• We've also used the (newline) procedure that starts a new line of output.
• There's a third useful output procedure, write, that works a lot like display except that it also displays quotation marks around strings and displays characters with the #\.
• A fourth procedure, write-char, only works with characters.

Program Input

newline.

• What procedures are available to read input?
  • Primarily read, which reads one Scheme value, skipping whitespace as appropriate.
  • Also read-char, which reads a single character for input.
• read is an interesting procedure. In many cases, it will continue to read for more than one line.

Lab

• You will, of course, experiment with these issues in the lab.
• Be prepared to reflect.