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13.2 Environment Variables

The user-initial-environment is where the top-level read-eval-print (REP) loop evaluates expressions and binds definitions. It is a child of system-global-environment, which is where all of the Scheme system definitions are bound. All of the bindings in system-global-environment are available when the current environment is user-initial-environment. However, any new bindings that you create in the REP loop (with define forms or by loading files containing define forms) occur in user-initial-environment.

— variable: system-global-environment

The variable system-global-environment is bound to the distinguished environment that's the ancestor of most other environments (except for those created by make-root-top-level-environment). It is the parent environment of user-initial-environment. Primitives, system procedures, and most syntactic keywords are bound (and sometimes closed) in this environment.

— variable: user-initial-environment

The variable user-initial-environment is bound to the default environment in which typed expressions are evaluated by the top-level REP loop.

Although all bindings in system-global-environment are visible to the REP loop, definitions that are typed at, or loaded by, the REP loop occur in the user-initial-environment. This is partly a safety measure: if you enter a definition that happens to have the same name as a critical system procedure, your definition will be visible only to the procedures you define in the user-initial-environment; the MIT/GNU Scheme system procedures, which are defined in system-global-environment, will continue to see the original definition.