where each slot-or-expr is either an expression or
the literal symbol <>.
It is frequently necessary to specialize some of the parameters of a
multi-parameter procedure. For example, from the binary operation cons
one might want to obtain the unary operation
(lambda (x) (cons 1 x)).
This specialization of parameters is also known
as partial application, operator section, or projection.
The macro cut specializes some of the parameters of its first
argument. The parameters that are to show up as formal variables of the
result are indicated by the symbol <>, pronouced as "slot".
In addition, the symbol <...>, pronounced as "rest-slot", matches all
residual arguments of a variable argument procedure.
A cut-expression is transformed into
a lambda expression with as many formal variables as there are
slots in the list slot-or-expr*.
The body of the resulting lambda expression calls
the first slot-or-expr with arguments from the slot-or-expr* list
in the order they appear. In case there is a rest-slot symbol, the resulting
procedure is also of variable arity, and the body calls the first
slot-or-expr with remaining arguments provided to the actual call of the
specialized procedure.
Here are some examples:
(cut cons (+ a 1) <>) is the same as (lambda (x2) (cons (+ a 1) x2))
(cut list 1 <> 3 <> 5) is the same as (lambda (x2 x4) (list 1 x2 3 x4 5))
(cut list) is the same as (lambda () (list))
(cut list 1 <> 3 <...>) is the same as (lambda (x2 . xs) (apply list 1 x2 3 xs))
The first argument can also be a slot, as one should expect in Scheme:
(cut <> a b) is the same as (lambda (f) (f a b))
