4.2 Identifiers and Binding

The context of an expression determines the meaning of identifiers that appear in the expression. In particular, starting a module with the language racket, as in

#lang racket

means that, within the module, the identifiers described in this guide start with the meaning described here: cons refers to the function that creates a pair, car refers to the function that extracts the first element of a pair, and so on.

Symbols introduces the syntax of identifiers.

Forms like define, lambda, and let associate a meaning with one or more identifiers; that is, they bind identifiers. The part of the program for which the binding applies is the scope of the binding. The set of bindings in effect for a given expression is the expression’s environment.

For example, in

#lang racket

(define f

(lambda (x)

(let ([y 5])

(+ x y))))

(f 10)

the define is a binding of f, the lambda has a binding for x, and the let has a binding for y. The scope of the binding for f is the entire module; the scope of the x binding is (let ([y 5]) (+ x y)); and the scope of the y binding is just (+ x y). The environment of (+ x y) includes bindings for y, x, and f, as well as everything in racket.

A module-level define can bind only identifiers that are not already defined or required into the module. A local define or other binding forms, however, can give a new local binding for an identifier that already has a binding; such a binding shadows the existing binding.

Similarly, a module-level define can shadow a binding from the module’s language. For example, (define cons 1) in a racket module shadows the cons that is provided by racket. Intentionally shadowing a language binding is rarely a good idea—especially for widely used bindings like cons—but shadowing relieves a programmer from having to avoid every obscure binding that is provided by a language.

Even identifiers like define and lambda get their meanings from bindings, though they have transformer bindings (which means that they indicate syntactic forms) instead of value bindings. Since define has a transformer binding, the identifier define cannot be used by itself to get a value. However, the normal binding for define can be shadowed.

Again, shadowing standard bindings in this way is rarely a good idea, but the possibility is an inherent part of Racket’s flexibility.