On this page:
impersonator?
chaperone?
impersonator-of?
chaperone-of?
impersonator-ephemeron
13.5.1 Impersonator Constructors
impersonate-procedure
impersonate-struct
impersonate-vector
impersonate-box
impersonate-hash
impersonate-prompt-tag
impersonate-continuation-mark-key
prop:  impersonator-of
13.5.2 Chaperone Constructors
chaperone-procedure
chaperone-struct
chaperone-vector
chaperone-box
chaperone-hash
chaperone-struct-type
chaperone-evt
chaperone-prompt-tag
chaperone-continuation-mark-key
13.5.3 Impersonator Properties
make-impersonator-property
impersonator-property?
impersonator-property-accessor-procedure?
impersonator-prop:  application-mark

13.5 Impersonators and Chaperones

An impersonator is a wrapper for a value where the wrapper redirects some of the value’s operations. Impersonators apply only to procedures, structures for which an accessor or mutator is available, structure types, hash tables, vectors, boxes, and prompt tags. An impersonator is equal? to the original value, but not eq? to the original value.

A chaperone is a kind of impersonator whose refinement of a value’s operation is restricted to side effects (including, in particular, raising an exception) or chaperoning values supplied to or produced by the operation. For example, a vector chaperone can redirect vector-ref to raise an exception if the accessed vector slot contains a string, or it can cause the result of vector-ref to be a chaperoned variant of the value that is in the accessed vector slot, but it cannot redirect vector-ref to produce a value that is arbitrarily different from the value in the vector slot.

A non-chaperone impersonator, in contrast, can refine an operation to swap one value for any other. An impersonator cannot be applied to an immutable value or refine the access to an immutable field in an instance of a structure type, since arbitrary redirection of an operation amounts to mutation of the impersonated value.

Beware that each of the following operations can be redirected to an arbitrary procedure through an impersonator on the operation’s argument—assuming that the operation is available to the creator of the impersonator:

Derived operations, such as printing a value, can be redirected through impersonators due to their use of accessor functions. The equal?, equal-hash-code, and equal-secondary-hash-code operations, in contrast, may bypass impersonators (but they are not obliged to).

In addition to redirecting operations that work on a value, a impersonator can include impersonator properties for an impersonated value. An impersonator property is similar to a structure type property, but it applies to impersonators instead of structure types and their instances.

procedure

(impersonator? v)  boolean?

  v : any/c
Returns #t if v is an impersonator, #f otherwise.

Programs and libraries generally should avoid impersonator? and treat impersonators the same as non-impersonator values. In rare cases, impersonator? may be needed to guard against redirection by an impersonator of an operation to an arbitrary procedure.

procedure

(chaperone? v)  boolean?

  v : any/c
Returns #t if v is a chaperone, #f otherwise.

Programs and libraries generally should avoid chaperone? for the same reason that they should avoid impersonator?.

procedure

(impersonator-of? v1 v2)  boolean?

  v1 : any/c
  v2 : any/c
Indicates whether v1 can be considered equivalent modulo impersonators to v2.

For values that include no impersonators, v1 and v2 can be considered impersonators of each other if they are equal?.

Otherwise, all impersonators of v2 must be intact in v1, in the sense that parts of v2 must be derived from v1 through one of the impersonator constructors (e.g., impersonate-procedure or chaperone-procedure).

See also prop:impersonator-of.

procedure

(chaperone-of? v1 v2)  boolean?

  v1 : any/c
  v2 : any/c
Indicates whether v1 can be considered equivalent modulo chaperones to v2.

For values that include no chaperones, v1 and v2 can be considered chaperones of each other if they are equal?, except that the mutability of vectors and boxes with v1 and v2 must be the same.

Otherwise, all chaperones of v2 must be intact in v1, in the sense that parts of v2 must be derived from v1 through one of the chaperone constructors (e.g., chaperone-procedure).

procedure

(impersonator-ephemeron v)  ephemeron?

  v : any/c
Produces an ephemeron that can be used to connect the reachability of v (in the sense of garbage collection; see Garbage Collection) with the reachability of any value for which v is an impersonator. That is, the value v will be considered reachable as long as the result ephemeron is reachable in addition to any value that v impersonates (including itself).

13.5.1 Impersonator Constructors

procedure

(impersonate-procedure proc 
  wrapper-proc 
  prop 
  prop-val ... 
  ...) 
  (and/c procedure? impersonator?)
  proc : procedure?
  wrapper-proc : procedure?
  prop : impersonator-property?
  prop-val : any
Returns an impersonator procedure that has the same arity, name, and other attributes as proc. When the impersonator procedure is applied, the arguments are first passed to wrapper-proc, and then the results from wrapper-proc are passed to proc. The wrapper-proc can also supply a procedure that processes the results of proc.

The arity of wrapper-proc must include the arity of proc. The allowed keyword arguments of wrapper-proc must be a superset of the allowed keywords of proc. The required keyword arguments of wrapper-proc must be a subset of the required keywords of proc.

For applications without keywords, the result of wrapper-proc must be either the same number of values as supplied to it or one more than the number of supplied values, where an extra result is supplied before the others. The additional result, if any, must be a procedure that accepts as many results as produced by proc; it must return the same number of results. If wrapper-proc returns the same number of values as it is given (i.e., it does not return a procedure to impersonator proc’s result), then proc is called in tail position with respect to the call to the impersonator.

For applications that include keyword arguments, wrapper-proc must return an additional value before any other values but after the result-impersonating procedure (if any). The additional value must be a list of replacements for the keyword arguments that were supplied to the impersonator (i.e., not counting optional arguments that were not supplied). The arguments must be ordered according to the sorted order of the supplied arguments’ keywords.

Pairs of prop and prop-val (the number of arguments to procedure-impersonator must be even) add impersonator properties or override impersonator-property values of proc.

If any prop is impersonator-prop:application-mark and if the associated prop-val is a pair, then the call to proc is wrapped with with-continuation-mark using (car prop-val) as the mark key and (cdr prop-val) as the mark value. In addition, if continuation-mark-set-first with (car prop-val) produces a value for the immediate continuation frame of the call to the impersonated procedure, the value is also installed as an immediate value for (car prop-val) as a mark during the call to wrapper-proc (which allows tail-calls of impersonators with respect to wrapping impersonators to be detected within wrapper-proc).

procedure

(impersonate-struct v    
  orig-proc    
  redirect-proc ...    
  ...    
  prop    
  prop-val ...    
  ...)  any/c
  v : any/c
  orig-proc : 
(or/c struct-accessor-procedure?
      struct-mutator-procedure?
      struct-type-property-accessor-procedure?)
  redirect-proc : procedure?
  prop : impersonator-property?
  prop-val : any
Returns an impersonator of v, which redirects certain operations on the impersonated value. The orig-procs indicate the operations to redirect, and the corresponding redirect-procs supply the redirections.

The protocol for a redirect-proc depends on the corresponding orig-proc:

Pairs of prop and prop-val (the number of arguments to impersonate-struct must be odd) add impersonator properties or override impersonator-property values of v.

Each orig-proc must indicate a distinct operation. If no orig-procs are supplied, then no props must be supplied, and v is returned unimpersonated.

procedure

(impersonate-vector vec 
  ref-proc 
  set-proc 
  prop 
  prop-val ... 
  ...) 
  (and/c vector? impersonator?)
  vec : (and/c vector? (not/c immutable?))
  ref-proc : (vector? exact-nonnegative-integer? any/c . -> . any/c)
  set-proc : (vector? exact-nonnegative-integer? any/c . -> . any/c)
  prop : impersonator-property?
  prop-val : any
Returns an impersonator of vec, which redirects the vector-ref and vector-set! operations.

The ref-proc must accept vec, an index passed to vector-ref, and the value that vector-ref on vec produces for the given index; it must produce a replacement for the value, which is the result of vector-ref on the impersonator.

The set-proc must accept vec, an index passed to vector-set!, and the value passed to vector-set!; it must produce a replacement for the value, which is used with vector-set! on the original vec to install the value.

Pairs of prop and prop-val (the number of arguments to impersonate-vector must be odd) add impersonator properties or override impersonator-property values of vec.

procedure

(impersonate-box box    
  unbox-proc    
  set-proc    
  prop    
  prop-val ...    
  ...)  (and/c box? impersonator?)
  box : (and/c box? (not/c immutable?))
  unbox-proc : (box? any/c . -> . any/c)
  set-proc : (box? any/c . -> . any/c)
  prop : impersonator-property?
  prop-val : any
Returns an impersonator of box, which redirects the unbox and set-box! operations.

The unbox-proc must accept box and the value that unbox produces on box; it must produce a replacement value, which is the result of unbox on the impersonator.

The set-proc must accept box and the value passed to set-box!; it must produce a replacement value, which is used with set-box! on the original box to install the value.

Pairs of prop and prop-val (the number of arguments to impersonate-box must be odd) add impersonator properties or override impersonator-property values of box.

procedure

(impersonate-hash hash    
  ref-proc    
  set-proc    
  remove-proc    
  key-proc    
  prop    
  prop-val ...    
  ...)  (and/c hash? impersonator?)
  hash : (and/c hash? (not/c immutable?))
  ref-proc : 
(hash? any/c . -> . (values
                     any/c
                     (hash? any/c any/c . -> . any/c)))
  set-proc : (hash? any/c any/c . -> . (values any/c any/c))
  remove-proc : (hash? any/c . -> . any/c)
  key-proc : (hash? any/c . -> . any/c)
  prop : impersonator-property?
  prop-val : any
Returns an impersonator of hash, which redirects the hash-ref, hash-set! or hash-set (as applicable), and hash-remove or hash-remove! (as applicable) operations. When hash-set or hash-remove is used on an impersonator of a hash table, the result is an impersonator with the same redirecting procedures. In addition, operations like hash-iterate-key or hash-map, which extract keys from the table, use key-proc to filter keys extracted from the table. Operations like hash-iterate-value or hash-iterate-map implicitly use hash-ref and therefore redirect through ref-proc.

The ref-proc must accept hash and a key passed to hash-ref. It must return a replacement key as well as a procedure. The returned procedure is called only if the returned key is found in hash via hash-ref, in which case the procedure is called with hash, the previously returned key, and the found value. The returned procedure must itself return a replacement for the found value.

The set-proc must accept hash, a key passed to hash-set! or hash-set, and the value passed to hash-set! or hash-set; it must produce two values: a replacement for the key and a replacement for the value. The returned key and value are used with hash-set! or hash-set on the original hash to install the value.

The remove-proc must accept hash and a key passed to hash-remove! or hash-remove; it must produce the a replacement for the key, which is used with hash-remove! or hash-remove on the original hash to remove any mapping using the (impersonator-replaced) key.

The key-proc must accept hash and a key that has been extracted from hash (by hash-iterate-key or other operations that use hash-iterate-key internally); it must produce a replacement for the key, which is then reported as a key extracted from the table.

The hash-iterate-value, hash-map, or hash-for-each functions use a combination of hash-iterate-key and hash-ref. If a key produced by key-proc does not yield a value through hash-ref, then the exn:fail:contract exception is raised.

Pairs of prop and prop-val (the number of arguments to impersonate-hash must be odd) add impersonator properties or override impersonator-property values of hash.

procedure

(impersonate-prompt-tag prompt-tag 
  handle-proc 
  abort-proc 
  [cc-guard-proc 
  callcc-impersonate-proc] 
  prop 
  prop-val ... 
  ...) 
  (and/c continuation-prompt-tag? impersonator?)
  prompt-tag : continuation-prompt-tag?
  handle-proc : procedure?
  abort-proc : procedure?
  cc-guard-proc : procedure? = values
  callcc-impersonate-proc : (procedure? . -> . procedure?)
   = (lambda (p) p)
  prop : impersonator-property?
  prop-val : any
Returns an impersonator of prompt-tag, which redirects the call-with-continuation-prompt and abort-current-continuation operations.

The handle-proc must accept the values that the handler of a continuation prompt would take and it must produce replacement values, which will be passed to the handler.

The abort-proc must accept the values passed to abort-current-continuation; it must produce replacement values, which are aborted to the appropriate prompt.

The cc-guard-proc must accept the values produced by call-with-continuation-prompt in the case that a non-composable continuation is applied to replace the continuation that is delimited by the prompt, but only if abort-current-continuation is not later used to abort the continuation delimited by the prompt (in which case abort-proc is used).

The callcc-impersonate-proc must accept a procedure that guards the result of a continuation captured by call-with-current-continuation with the impersonated prompt tag. The callcc-impersonate-proc is applied (under a continuation barrier) when the captured continuation is applied to refine a guard function (initially values) that is specific to the delimiting prompt; this prompt-specific guard is ultimately composed with any cc-guard-proc that is in effect at the delimiting prompt, and it is not used in the same case that a cc-guard-proc is not used (i.e., when abort-current-continuation is used to abort to the prompt). In the special case where the delimiting prompt at application time is a thread’s built-in initial prompt, callcc-impersonate-proc is ignored (partly on the grounds that the initial prompt’s result is ignored).

Pairs of prop and prop-val (the number of arguments to impersonate-prompt-tag must be odd) add impersonator properties or override impersonator-property values of prompt-tag.

Examples:

> (define tag
    (impersonate-prompt-tag
     (make-continuation-prompt-tag)
     (lambda (n) (* n 2))
     (lambda (n) (+ n 1))))
> (call-with-continuation-prompt
    (lambda ()
      (abort-current-continuation tag 5))
    tag
    (lambda (n) n))

12

procedure

(impersonate-continuation-mark-key key 
  get-proc 
  set-proc 
  prop 
  prop-val ... 
  ...) 
  (and/c continuation-mark? impersonator?)
  key : continuation-mark-key?
  get-proc : procedure?
  set-proc : procedure?
  prop : impersonator-property?
  prop-val : any
Returns an impersonator of key, which redirects with-continuation-mark and continuation mark accessors such as continuation-mark-set->list.

The get-proc must accept the value attached to a continuation mark and it must produce a replacement value, which will be returned by the continuation mark accessor.

The set-proc must accept a value passed to with-continuation-mark; it must produce a replacement value, which is attached to the continuation frame.

Pairs of prop and prop-val (the number of arguments to impersonate-prompt-tag must be odd) add impersonator properties or override impersonator-property values of key.

Examples:

> (define mark-key
    (impersonate-continuation-mark-key
     (make-continuation-mark-key)
     (lambda (l) (map char-upcase l))
     (lambda (s) (string->list s))))
> (with-continuation-mark mark-key "quiche"
    (continuation-mark-set-first
     (current-continuation-marks)
     mark-key))

'(#\Q #\U #\I #\C #\H #\E)

A structure type property (see Structure Type Properties) that supplies a procedure for extracting an impersonated value from a structure that represents an impersonator. The property is used for impersonator-of? as well as equal?.

The property value must be a procedure of one argument, which is a structure whose structure type has the property. The result can be #f to indicate the structure does not represent an impersonator, otherwise the result is a value for which the original structure is an impersonator (so the original structure is an impersonator-of? and equal? to the result value). The result value must have the same prop:impersonator-of and prop:equal+hash property values as the original structure, and the property values must be inherited from the same structure type (which ensures some consistency between impersonator-of? and equal?).

13.5.2 Chaperone Constructors

procedure

(chaperone-procedure proc 
  wrapper-proc 
  prop 
  prop-val ... 
  ...) 
  (and/c procedure? chaperone?)
  proc : procedure?
  wrapper-proc : procedure?
  prop : impersonator-property?
  prop-val : any
Like impersonate-procedure, but for each value supplied to wrapper-proc, the corresponding result must be the same or a chaperone of (in the sense of chaperone-of?) the supplied value. The additional result, if any, that precedes the chaperoned values must be a procedure that accepts as many results as produced by proc; it must return the same number of results, each of which is the same or a chaperone of the corresponding original result.

For applications that include keyword arguments, wrapper-proc must return an additional value before any other values but after the result-chaperoning procedure (if any). The additional value must be a list of chaperones of the keyword arguments that were supplied to the chaperone procedure (i.e., not counting optional arguments that were not supplied). The arguments must be ordered according to the sorted order of the supplied arguments’ keywords.

procedure

(chaperone-struct v    
  orig-proc    
  redirect-proc ...    
  ...    
  prop    
  prop-val ...    
  ...)  any/c
  v : any/c
  orig-proc : 
(or/c struct-accessor-procedure?
      struct-mutator-procedure?
      struct-type-property-accessor-procedure?
      (one-of/c struct-info))
  redirect-proc : procedure?
  prop : impersonator-property?
  prop-val : any
Like impersonate-struct, but with the following refinements:

procedure

(chaperone-vector vec    
  ref-proc    
  set-proc    
  prop    
  prop-val ...    
  ...)  (and/c vector? chaperone?)
  vec : vector?
  ref-proc : (vector? exact-nonnegative-integer? any/c . -> . any/c)
  set-proc : (vector? exact-nonnegative-integer? any/c . -> . any/c)
  prop : impersonator-property?
  prop-val : any
Like impersonate-vector, but with support for immutable vectors. The ref-proc procedure must produce the same value or a chaperone of the original value, and set-proc must produce the value that is given or a chaperone of the value. The set-proc will not be used if vec is immutable.

procedure

(chaperone-box box    
  unbox-proc    
  set-proc    
  prop    
  prop-val ...    
  ...)  (and/c box? chaperone?)
  box : box?
  unbox-proc : (box? any/c . -> . any/c)
  set-proc : (box? any/c . -> . any/c)
  prop : impersonator-property?
  prop-val : any
Like impersonate-box, but with support for immutable boxes. The unbox-proc procedure must produce the same value or a chaperone of the original value, and set-proc must produce the same value or a chaperone of the value that it is given. The set-proc will not be used if box is immutable.

procedure

(chaperone-hash hash    
  ref-proc    
  set-proc    
  remove-proc    
  key-proc    
  prop    
  prop-val ...    
  ...)  (and/c hash? chaperone?)
  hash : hash?
  ref-proc : 
(hash? any/c . -> . (values
                     any/c
                     (hash? any/c any/c . -> . any/c)))
  set-proc : (hash? any/c any/c . -> . (values any/c any/c))
  remove-proc : (hash? any/c . -> . any/c)
  key-proc : (hash? any/c . -> . any/c)
  prop : impersonator-property?
  prop-val : any
Like impersonate-hash, but with constraints on the given functions and support for immutable hashes. The ref-proc procedure must return a found value or a chaperone of the value. The set-proc procedure must produce two values: the key that it is given or a chaperone of the key and the value that it is given or a chaperone of the value. The remove-proc and key-proc procedures must produce the given key or a chaperone of the key.

procedure

(chaperone-struct-type struct-type 
  struct-info-proc 
  make-constructor-proc 
  guard-proc 
  prop 
  prop-val ... 
  ...) 
  (and/c struct-type? chaperone?)
  struct-type : struct-type?
  struct-info-proc : procedure?
  make-constructor-proc : (procedure? . -> . procedure?)
  guard-proc : procedure?
  prop : impersonator-property?
  prop-val : any
Returns a chaperoned value like struct-type, but with struct-type-info and struct-type-make-constructor operations on the chaperoned structure type redirected. In addition, when a new structure type is created as a subtype of the chaperoned structure type, guard-proc is interposed as an extra guard on creation of instances of the subtype.

The struct-info-proc must accept 8 arguments—the result of struct-type-info on struct-type. It must return 8 values, where each is the same or a chaperone of the corresponding argument. The 8 values are used as the results of struct-type-info for the chaperoned structure type.

The make-constructor-proc must accept a single procedure argument, which is a constructor produced by struct-type-make-constructor on struct-type. It must return the same or a chaperone of the procedure, which is used as the result of struct-type-make-constructor on the chaperoned structure type.

The guard-proc must accept as many argument as a constructor for struct-type; it must return the same number of arguments, each the same or a chaperone of the corresponding argument. The guard-proc is added as a constructor guard when a subtype is created of the chaperoned structure type.

Pairs of prop and prop-val (the number of arguments to chaperone-struct-type must be even) add impersonator properties or override impersonator-property values of struct-type.

procedure

(chaperone-evt evt proc prop prop-val ... ...)

  (and/c evt? chaperone?)
  evt : evt?
  proc : (evt? . -> . (values evt? (any/c . -> . any/c)))
  prop : impersonator-property?
  prop-val : any
Returns a chaperoned value like evt, but with proc as an event generator when the result is synchronized with functions like sync.

The proc generator is called on synchronization, much like the procedure passed to guard-evt, except that proc is given evt. The proc must return two values: a synchronizable event that is a chaperone of evt, and a procedure that is used to check the event’s result if it is chosen in a selection. The latter procedure accepts the result of evt, and it must return a chaperone of that value.

Pairs of prop and prop-val (the number of arguments to chaperone-evt must be even) add impersonator properties or override impersonator-property values of evt.

procedure

(chaperone-prompt-tag prompt-tag 
  handle-proc 
  abort-proc 
  [cc-guard-proc 
  callcc-chaperone-proc] 
  prop 
  prop-val ... 
  ...) 
  (and/c continuation-prompt-tag? chaperone?)
  prompt-tag : continuation-prompt-tag?
  handle-proc : procedure?
  abort-proc : procedure?
  cc-guard-proc : procedure? = values
  callcc-chaperone-proc : (procedure? . -> . procedure?)
   = (lambda (p) p)
  prop : impersonator-property?
  prop-val : any
Like impersonate-prompt-tag, but produces a chaperoned value. The handle-proc procedure must produce the same values or chaperones of the original values, abort-proc must produce the same values or chaperones of the values that it is given, and cc-guard-proc must produce the same values or chaperones of the original result values, and callcc-chaperone-proc must procedure a procedure that is a chaperone or the same as the given procedure.

Examples:

> (define bad-chaperone
    (chaperone-prompt-tag
     (make-continuation-prompt-tag)
     (lambda (n) (* n 2))
     (lambda (n) (+ n 1))))
> (call-with-continuation-prompt
    (lambda ()
      (abort-current-continuation bad-chaperone 5))
    bad-chaperone
    (lambda (n) n))

abort-current-continuation: non-chaperone result;

 received a value that is not a chaperone of the original

value

  original: 5

  received: 6

> (define good-chaperone
    (chaperone-prompt-tag
     (make-continuation-prompt-tag)
     (lambda (n) (if (even? n) n (error "not even")))
     (lambda (n) (if (even? n) n (error "not even")))))
> (call-with-continuation-prompt
    (lambda ()
      (abort-current-continuation good-chaperone 2))
    good-chaperone
    (lambda (n) n))

2

procedure

(chaperone-continuation-mark-key key 
  get-proc 
  set-proc 
  prop 
  prop-val ... 
  ...) 
  (and/c continuation-mark-key? chaperone?)
  key : continuation-mark-key?
  get-proc : procedure?
  set-proc : procedure?
  prop : impersonator-property?
  prop-val : any
Like impersonate-continuation-mark-key, but produces a chaperoned value. The get-proc procedure must produce the same value or a chaperone of the original value, and set-proc must produce the same value or a chaperone of the value that it is given.

Examples:

> (define bad-chaperone
    (chaperone-continuation-mark-key
     (make-continuation-mark-key)
     (lambda (l) (map char-upcase l))
     string->list))
> (with-continuation-mark bad-chaperone "timballo"
    (continuation-mark-set-first
     (current-continuation-marks)
     bad-chaperone))

with-continuation-mark: non-chaperone result;

 received a value that is not a chaperone of the original

value

  original: "timballo"

  received: '(#\t #\i #\m #\b #\a #\l #\l #\o)

> (define (checker s)
    (if (> (string-length s) 5)
        s
        (error "expected string of length at least 5")))
> (define good-chaperone
    (chaperone-continuation-mark-key
     (make-continuation-mark-key)
     checker
     checker))
> (with-continuation-mark good-chaperone "zabaione"
    (continuation-mark-set-first
     (current-continuation-marks)
     good-chaperone))

"zabaione"

13.5.3 Impersonator Properties

Creates a new impersonator property and returns three values:

procedure

(impersonator-property? v)  boolean?

  v : any/c
Returns #t if v is a impersonator property descriptor value, #f otherwise.

Returns #t if v is an accessor procedure produced by make-impersonator-property, #f otherwise.