Node:Syntax, Next:Notation and terminology, Previous:Semantics, Up:Overview of Scheme
Scheme, like most dialects of Lisp, employs a fully parenthesized prefix
notation for programs and (other) data; the grammar of Scheme generates a
sublanguage of the language used for data. An important
consequence of this simple, uniform representation is the susceptibility of
Scheme programs and data to uniform treatment by other Scheme programs.
For example, the eval
procedure evaluates a Scheme program expressed
as data.
The read
procedure performs syntactic as well as lexical decomposition of
the data it reads. The read
procedure parses its input as data
(section see External representation), not as program.
The formal syntax of Scheme is described in section Formal syntax.