3.3.4 Declaration Scope

Declarations can be divided into two kinds: those that apply to the bindings of variables or functions; and those that do not apply to bindings.

A declaration that appears at the head of a binding form and applies to a variable or function binding made by that form is called a bound declaration; such a declaration affects both the binding and any references within the scope of the declaration.

Declarations that are not bound declarations are called free declarations.

A free declaration in a form F1 that applies to a binding for a name N established by some form F2 of which F1 is a subform affects only references to N within F1; it does not to apply to other references to N outside of F1, nor does it affect the manner in which the binding of N by F2 is established.

Declarations that do not apply to bindings can only appear as free declarations.

The scope of a bound declaration is the same as the lexical scope of the binding to which it applies; for special variables, this means the scope that the binding would have had had it been a lexical binding.

Unless explicitly stated otherwise, the scope of a free declaration includes only the body subforms of the form at whose head it appears, and no other subforms. The scope of free declarations specifically does not include initialization forms for bindings established by the form containing the declarations.

Some iteration forms include step, end-test, or result subforms that are also included in the scope of declarations that appear in the iteration form. Specifically, the iteration forms and subforms involved are:

• do, do*: step-forms, end-test-form, and result-forms.
• dolist, dotimes: result-form
• do-all-symbols, do-external-symbols, do-symbols: result-form

3.3.4.1 Examples of Declaration Scope

Here is an example illustrating the scope of bound declarations.

 (let ((x 1))                ;[1] 1st occurrence of x
   (declare (special x))     ;[2] 2nd occurrence of x
   (let ((x 2))              ;[3] 3rd occurrence of x
     (let ((old-x x)         ;[4] 4th occurrence of x
           (x 3))            ;[5] 5th occurrence of x
       (declare (special x)) ;[6] 6th occurrence of x
       (list old-x x))))     ;[7] 7th occurrence of x
→ (2 3)

The first occurrence of x establishes a dynamic binding of x because of the special declaration for x in the second line. The third occurrence of x establishes a lexical binding of x (because there is no special declaration in the corresponding let form). The fourth occurrence of x x is a reference to the lexical binding of x established in the third line. The fifth occurrence of x establishes a dynamic binding of x for the body of the let form that begins on that line because of the special declaration for x in the sixth line. The reference to x in the fourth line is not affected by the special declaration in the sixth line because that reference is not within the “would-be lexical scope” of the variable x in the fifth line. The reference to x in the seventh line is a reference to the dynamic binding of x established in the fifth line.

Here is another example, to illustrate the scope of a free declaration. In the following:

 (lambda (&optional (x (foo 1))) ;[1]
   (declare (notinline foo))     ;[2]
   (foo x))                      ;[3]

the call to foo in the first line might be compiled inline even though the call to foo in the third line must not be. This is because the notinline declaration for foo in the second line applies only to the body on the third line. In order to suppress inlining for both calls, one might write:

 (locally (declare (notinline foo)) ;[1]
   (lambda (&optional (x (foo 1)))  ;[2]
     (foo x)))                      ;[3]

or, alternatively:

 (lambda (&optional                               ;[1]
            (x (locally (declare (notinline foo)) ;[2]
                 (foo 1))))                       ;[3]
   (declare (notinline foo))                      ;[4]
   (foo x))                                       ;[5]

Finally, here is an example that shows the scope of declarations in an iteration form.

 (let ((x  1))                     ;[1]
   (declare (special x))           ;[2]
     (let ((x 2))                  ;[3]
       (dotimes (i x x)            ;[4]
         (declare (special x)))))  ;[5]
→ 1

In this example, the first reference to x on the fourth line is to the lexical binding of x established on the third line. However, the second occurrence of x on the fourth line lies within the scope of the free declaration on the fifth line (because this is the result-form of the dotimes) and therefore refers to the dynamic binding of x.