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  ANSI Common Lisp   3 Evaluation and Compilation   3.8 Dictionary Evaluation and Compilation

3.8.16 proclaim Function

Syntax:
proclaim declaration-specifier    implementation-dependent

Arguments and Values:
declaration-specifier - a declaration specifier.

Description:
Establishes the declaration specified by declaration-specifier in the global environment.

Such a declaration, sometimes called a global declaration or a proclamation, is always in force unless locally shadowed.

Names of variables and functions within declaration-specifier refer to dynamic variables and global function definitions, respectively.

The next figure shows a list of declaration identifiers that can be used with proclaim.

Global Declaration Specifiers
declaration inline optimize type
ftype notinline special

An implementation is free to support other (implementation-defined) declaration identifiers as well.

Examples:
 (defun declare-variable-types-globally (type vars)
   (proclaim `(type ,type ,@vars))
   type)

 ;; Once this form is executed, the dynamic variable *TOLERANCE*
 ;; must always contain a float.
 (declare-variable-types-globally 'float '(*tolerance*))
  FLOAT

See Also:
declaim, declare, Section 3.2 Compilation

Notes:
Although the execution of a proclaim form has effects that might affect compilation, the compiler does not make any attempt to recognize and specially process proclaim forms. A proclamation such as the following, even if a top level form, does not have any effect until it is executed:

(proclaim '(special *x*))

If compile time side effects are desired, eval-when may be useful. For example:

 (eval-when (:execute :compile-toplevel :load-toplevel)
   (proclaim '(special *x*)))

In most such cases, however, it is preferrable to use declaim for this purpose.

Since proclaim forms are ordinary function forms, macro forms can expand into them.

Allegro CL Implementation Details:
None.

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