ReadLisp - Python/Lisp data conversion
readlisp provides functions to convert between Lisp expressions and Python objects, making it easy for Lisp and Python programs to share data. It is inspired by Mark Probst's Lispreader for C (http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/~schani/lispreader/">Lispreader), but unlike Lispreader, readlisp converts the Lisp expression into native Python data types. You can do:
>>> readlisp('(1 2 3 ("Hello" "there"))')
[1, 2, 3, ['Hello', 'there']]
>>> writelisp([1, 2, 3.14)])
'(1 2 3.14)'
Currently, lists, strings, integers, floats and and symbols are supported. Booleans will probably be supported soon.
Lisp symbols are converted to instances of the LispSymbol class, but this can be overridden with the optional second argument to readlisp(). You may pass a dictionary or a function. If you pass a dictionary, the symbol will be looked up in the dictionary:
>>> readlisp('(a b)', {'a' : 1, 'b' : 2})
[1, 2]
If you pass a function which takes one argument, the function is called with the symbol name as an argument and the result is used:
>>> readlisp('(a b)', str)
['a', 'b']
Status
This is experimental. Anything may change at this point. Comments are welcome.
Todo
Add unicode support.
What should readlisp() return when there are no more expressions to read? It can't return '' or None, since the expression may well be one of these two. Should it raise an exception?
Ole Martin Bjørndalen - ombdalen@gmail.com