help to understand continuation

Each of the continuation invocations above returns to the continuation while control remains within the procedure passed to call/cc. The following example uses the continuation after this procedure has already returned.

 

(let ((x (call/cc (lambda (k) k))))
  (x (lambda (ignore) "hi"))) => "hi"

The continuation obtained by this invocation of call/cc may be described as "Take the value, bind it to x, and apply the value of x to the value of (lambda (ignore) "hi")." Since (lambda (k) k) returns its argument, x is bound to the continuation itself; this continuation is applied to the procedure resulting from the evaluation of (lambda (ignore) "hi"). This has the effect of binding x (again!) to this procedure and applying the procedure to itself. The procedure ignores its argument and returns "hi".

The following variation of the example above is probably the most confusing Scheme program of its size; it may be easy to guess what it returns, but it takes some work to verify that guess.

 

(((call/cc (lambda (k) k)) (lambda (x) x)) "HEY!")  => "HEY!"

The value of the call/cc is its own continuation, as in the preceding example. This is applied to the identity procedure (lambda (x) x), so the call/cc returns a second time with this value. Then, the identity procedure is applied to itself, yielding the identity procedure. This is finally applied to "HEY!", yielding "HEY!".

 

看了好几天才明白，continuation就是代表一个动作，take k最后被绑定的值，做接下去的事情，并且

（k  xx）就是绑定k 为XX然后再做下去

 

(define retry #f)

(define factorial
  (lambda (x)
    (if (= x 0)
        (call/cc (lambda (k) (set! retry k) 1))
        (* x (factorial (- x 1))))))

With this definition, factorial works as we expect factorial to work, except it has the side effect of assigning retry.

 

(factorial 4) => 24
(retry 1) => 24
(retry 2) => 48

The continuation bound to retry might be described as "Multiply the value by 1, then multiply this result by 2, then multiply this result by 3, then multiply this result by 4." If we pass the continuation a different value, i.e., not 1, we will cause the base value to be something other than 1 and hence change the end result.

 

(retry 2) => 48
(retry 5) => 120