let* and letrec¶

Creating one or more local bindings with let is a powerful concept, but there are cases where it is limited by the fact that the bindings are only accessible in the body of the expression.

The easiest way to make the point is an example. For this we will continue to work with the expression from the previous chapters, factoring out yet another set of objects to bindings:

dampedYellowWithLet =
#(let ((color (car props))
       (damping (cdr props)))
   (list
    (/ (first color) damping)
    (/ (second color) damping)
    (/ (third color) damping)))

let*¶

Suppose we don't want to repeatedly access color in the expression body but rather have bindings for the RGB values that we can use like

(list
  (/ r damping)
  (/ g damping)
  (/ b damping)
)

Again, in this example case this doesn't make much sense, but when real-world objects are complex it can be a crucial simplification.

We might be tempted to write

#(let ((color (car props))
       (r (first color))
       (g (second color))
       (b (third color))
       (damping (cdr props)))
   (list
    (/ r damping)
    (/ g damping)
    (/ b damping)))

which seems like it might do the job: create three additional bindings making use of the color binding done previously. However, this doesn't work out:

.../main.ly:7:2: error: GUILE signaled an error for the expression beginning here
#
 (let ((color (car props))
Unbound variable: color

When we try to access color (in (r (first color))) that binding hasn't been created yet because all the bindings are only available when the bindings part of the expression has been completed.

For this use case there is the alternative let*. This works like let, with the difference that each binding is accessible immediately, already within the bindings part of the expression. Thus the following works:

#(let* ((color (car props))
        (r (first color))
        (g (second color))
        (b (third color))
        (damping (cdr props)))
    (list
     (/ r damping)
     (/ g damping)
     (/ b damping)))

In fact the necessity to use the let* form is quite regular, and therefore many people tend to write (let* before thinking of the actual use case. But while this works always one should consider that the added flexibility always comes at the cost of added computation, and while this may usually be negligible it should be good practice not to use up resources without need.

letrec¶

There is another form of local binding, letrec. This works like let* with the added convenience that all bindings are available for all other bindings, regardless of the order. With this expression it is possible to create bindings that are mutually dependent. This isn't required very often, therefore I won't go into more details about it, but you should at least have in mind that this option is available.