7.7 Gotchas

► |  | Guide: Racket

1 | Welcome to Racket
2 | Racket Essentials
3 | Built-In Datatypes
4 | Expressions and Definitions
5 | Programmer-Defined Datatypes
6 | Modules
7 | Contracts
8 | Input and Output
9 | Regular Expressions
10 | Exceptions and Control
11 | Iterations and Comprehensions
12 | Pattern Matching
13 | Classes and Objects
14 | Units (Components)
15 | Reflection and Dynamic Evaluation
16 | Macros
17 | Creating Languages
18 | Performance
19 | Running and Creating Executables
20 | Compilation and Configuration
21 | More Libraries
22 | Dialects of Racket and Scheme
| Bibliography
| Index

▼ | 7 | Contracts

7.1 | Contracts and Boundaries
7.2 | Simple Contracts on Functions
7.3 | Contracts on Functions in General
7.4 | Contracts on Structures
7.5 | Abstract Contracts using #: exists and #: ∃
7.6 | Additional Examples
7.7 | Gotchas

► | 7.7 | Gotchas

7.7.1 | Contracts and eq?
7.7.2 | Exists Contracts and Predicates
7.7.3 | Defining Recursive Contracts
7.7.4 | Mixing set! and provide/ contract

On this page:

7.7.1`` Contracts and eq?
7.7.2`` Exists Contracts and Predicates
7.7.3`` Defining Recursive Contracts
7.7.4`` Mixing set! and provide/ contract

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#### 7.7`` Gotchas

##### 7.7.1`` Contracts and eq?

As a general rule, adding a contract to a program should either leave the behavior of the program unchanged, or should signal a contract violation. And this is almost true for Racket contracts, with one exception: eq?.

The eq? procedure is designed to be fast and does not provide much in the way of guarantees, except that if it returns true, it means that the two values behave identically in all respects. Internally, this is implemented as pointer equality at a low-level so it exposes information about how Racket is implemented (and how contracts are implemented).

Contracts interact poorly with eq? because function contract checking is implemented internally as wrapper functions. For example, consider this module:

#lang racket
( define (make-adder x)
( if (= 1 x)
add1
( lambda (y) (+ x y))))
( provide/contract [make-adder (-> number? (-> number? number?))])

It exports the make-adder function that is the usual curried addition function, except that it returns Racket’s add1 when its input is 1.

You might expect that

( eq? (make-adder 1)
(make-adder 1))

would return #t, but it does not. If the contract were changed to any/c (or even (-> number? any/c)), then the eq? call would return #t.

Moral: Do not use eq? on values that have contracts.

##### 7.7.2`` Exists Contracts and Predicates

Much like the eq? example above, #:∃ contracts can change the behavior of a program.

Specifically, the null? predicate (and many other predicates) return #f for #:∃ contracts, and changing one of those contracts to any/c means that null? might now return #t instead, resulting in arbitrarily different behavior depending on this boolean might flow around in the program.

#lang racket/exists

To work around the above problem, the racket/exists library behaves just like the racket, but where predicates signal errors when given #:∃ contracts.

Moral: Do not use predicates on #:∃ contracts, but if you’re not sure, use racket/exists to be safe.

##### 7.7.3`` Defining Recursive Contracts

When defining a self-referential contract, it is natural to use define. For example, one might try to write a contract on streams like this:

> ( define stream/c
( promise/c
( or/c
null?
( cons/c number? stream/c))))

reference to undefined identifier: stream/c

Unfortunately, this does not work because the value of stream/c is needed before it is defined. Put another way, all of the combinators evaluate their arguments eagerly, even thought the values that they accept do not.

Instead, use

( define stream/c
( promise/c
( or/c
null?
( cons/c 1
( recursive-contract stream/c)))))

The use of recursive-contract delays the evaluation of the identifier stream/c until after the contract is first checked, long enough to ensure that stream/c is defined.

See also Checking Properties of Data Structures.

##### 7.7.4`` Mixing set! and provide/contract

The contract library assumes that variables exported via provide/contract are not assigned to, but does not enforce it. Accordingly, if you try to set! those variables, you may be surprised. Consider the following example:

> ( module server racket
( define (inc-x!) ( set! x (+ x 1)))
( define x 0)
( provide/contract [inc-x! (-> void?)]
[x integer?]))

> ( module client racket
( require 'server)
( define (print-latest) ( printf "x is ~s\n" x))
(print-latest)
(inc-x!)
(print-latest))

> ( require 'client)

x is 0
x is 0

Both calls to print-latest print 0, even though the value of x has been incremented (and the change is visible inside the module x).

To work around this, export accessor functions, rather than exporting the variable directly, like this:

#lang racket
( define (get-x) x)
( define (inc-x!) ( set! x (+ x 1)))
( define x 0)
( provide/contract [inc-x! (-> void?)]
[get-x (-> integer?)])

Moral: This is a bug that we will address in a future release.

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