14.3 The racket/load Language

The racket/load language supports evaluation where each top-level form in the module body is separately passed to eval in the same way as for load.

The namespace for evaluation shares the module registry with the racket/load module instance, but it has a separate top-level environment, and it is initialized with the bindings of racket. A single namespace is created for each instance of the racket/load module (i.e., multiple modules using the racket/load language share a namespace). The racket/load library exports only #%module-begin and #%top-interaction forms that effectively swap in the evaluation namespace and call eval.

For example, the body of a module using racket/load can include module forms, so that running the following module prints 5:

#lang racket/load

(module m racket/base

(provide x)

(define x 5))

(module n racket/base

(require 'm)

(display x))

(require 'n)

Definitions in a module using racket/load are evaluated in the current namespace, which means that load and eval can see the definitions. For example, running the following module prints 6:

#lang racket/load

(define x 6)

(display (eval 'x))

Since all forms within a racket/load module are evaluated in the top level, bindings cannot be exported from the module using provide. Similarly, since evaluation of the module-body forms is inherently dynamic, compilation of the module provides essentially no benefit. For these reasons, use racket/load for interactive exploration of top-level forms only, and not for constructing larger programs.