Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!bu-cs!bloom-beacon!think!barmar
From: barmar@think.COM (Barry Margolin)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: multiple values and conditionals
Message-ID: <39643@think.UUCP>
Date: 23 Apr 89 23:05:48 GMT
References: <886@cadillac.CAD.MCC.COM>
Sender: news@think.UUCP
Reply-To: barmar@kulla.think.com.UUCP (Barry Margolin)
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
Lines: 17

In article <886@cadillac.CAD.MCC.COM> vaughan@puma.cad.mcc.com (Paul Vaughan) writes:
>This is a specification for a multiple-value handling OR construct.
...
>Somebody please tell me why such a thing is stupid, unnecessary, or
>should never arise.

As you've shown, there's a perfectly good use for such a construct.
Perhaps your real question is why the built-in OR construct doesn't
behave this way.  For the same reason that there's a PROG1 and a
MULTIPLE-VALUE-PROG1: allocating space for a single temporary is
easier than doing it for arbitrary-length temporaries.

Barry Margolin
Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar@think.com
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