Booleans¶

Boolean expressions are expressions that represent a “true” or ”false” value. This sounds trivial, but in fact, although any programming language relies on having some boolean representation , there are significant differences in how they are actually handled.

Scheme has two explicit constants for true and false, namely #t and #f. They start with the # hash sign, therefore it has to be stressed that in LilyPond these constants have to be written with two hash signs, one for switching to Scheme and the other as part of the constant itself. This is consequent but often causes confusion:

guile>#t
#t

guile>#f
#f

but

\paper {
  ragged-bottom = ##t
  ragged-last-bottom = ##f
}

#t vs. ”A true value”¶

We have already encountered booleans in predicates, which are procedures that evaluate to #t or #f. However, beside the two boolean constants there is the concept of “true value” and “false value”. Expressions that “have a true value” do not necessarily “evaluate to #t”. Rather they are everything that is not #f. This distinction will become important when we talk about conditionals.