Multimethods for Common Lisp

Basically, clojure has this notion of multimethods, where the dispatching function is determined by the user at definition time.

Common Lisp's generic methods from CLOS are similar, but dispatch solely on the types of the arguments.

API

defmulti name test args dispatch

Create a new multimethod name, and define a dispatching function for it. Every instance of this mulitmethod must take the arguments in args. The code in dispatch should return a value based on the arguments in args, and return a value. That value will be compared (via test function test) to the instance's dispatch value. If test is non-nil, that instance's method will be invoked.

defmultimethod name dispatch-value args body

Create an instance of the multimethod. name must be defined with defmulti previously. Executes code in body with arguments args if the dispatch-value satisfies the test of the dispatching function defined with defmulti, above.

Example

From the clojure website, see: http://clojure.org/runtime_polymorphism

(defmulti encounter #'equalp (x y)
  (list (gethash :species x) (gethash :species y)))

(defmultimethod encounter (list :bunny :lion)  (x y) 
  :run-away)
(defmultimethod encounter (list :lion :bunny)  (x y)
  :eat)
(defmultimethod encounter (list :lion :lion)   (x y)
  :fight)
(defmultimethod encounter (list :bunny :bunny) (x y)
  :mate)

(let ((b1 (alexandria:plist-hash-table '(:species :bunny)))
      (b2 (alexandria:plist-hash-table '(:species :bunny)))
      (l1 (alexandria:plist-hash-table '(:species :lion)))
      (l2 (alexandria:plist-hash-table '(:species :lion))))
  (assert-equal :run-away (encounter b1 l1))
  (assert-equal :eat      (encounter l1 b1))
  (assert-equal :fight    (encounter l1 l2))
  (assert-equal :mate     (encounter b1 b2))))