As an aside: maybe it's better to make the primitives really, really primitive?

Basically we define separate %n+ for adding two fixnums, %f+ for adding two flonums, %fn+ for adding a flonum and a fixnum (in that order) and, %nf+ for adding a fixnum and a flonum (in that order).

Then we can write + in lib-ac.scm.arc as:

  (set +
    (fn rest
      ($+ rest)))
  (set $+
    (fn (args)
      (if args
          (if (%cdr args)
              ($sub+ (%car args) (%cdr args))
              (%car args))
          0)))
  (set $sub+
    (fn (accum rest)
      (if rest
          ((fn (val rest)
             (if (%is (%type accum) 'int)
                 (if (%is (%type val) 'int)
                     ($sub+ (%n+ accum val) rest)
                     (if (%is (%type val) 'num)
                         ($sub+ (%nf+ accum val) rest)
                         ; raise exception
                         ()))
                 (if (%is (%type accum) 'num)
                     (if (%is (%type val) 'int)
                         ($sub+ (%fn+ accum val) rest)
                         (if (%is (%type val) 'num)
                             ($sub+ (%f+ accum val) rest)
                             ; raise exception
                             ()))
                     ; raise exception
                     ())))
            (%car rest) (%cdr rest))
          accum)))

Now, macros. I tried to think about it yesterday, and I don't really understand why you need this protected mode. I mean, macros have to be defined (globally) before they are called and treated as such. Since you can already identify all the globals (and since a macro is a global thing annotated by 'mac), it should be easy to

- make a list of all the symbols holding a macro at a given moment in the code

- explore all the sexprs to see if one of those symbols is the first element of any sublist

- if it is to, make the transformation

- do it again until nothing changes anymore

  (do
    (= xe 0)
    (mac somethingstupid ()
      (= xe (+ xe 1))
      `(prn "something stupid" ,xe)))

If I understand well, we have to interpret the code as we compile it (as a macro's body is executed when a function is defined/compiled, not when executed) ? To me, macros were something translating a piece of code into another one, period. But that's not always the case as your example shows. If someone writes

  (mac foo
    (prn "blah"))

  (def bar (n)
    (foo) (* n 2))

The global environment is shadowed by a table; when this table is accessed, if a table entry does not exist, we look it up in the real environment using 'eval (!!) and retain a copy. This allows the macro to use stuff like 'map.

Edit: Also, it might be useful to organize the primitives as "functions", like what I did with cons_fun().

So:

  #define CONS() {obj d = POP(); TOS() = cons_fun(TOS(), d);}

  (%cons foo (%car bar))
  ==>
  PUSH(cons_fun(foo, car_fun(bar)));

  QUOTE_CONSTANT[0] = cons_fun(FIX2OBJ(1),cons_fun(FIX2OBJ(2),NILOBJ))

Called the "Arc stack", maybe? ^^

Currently this is what is done:

  QUOTE_CONSTANTS[0] = cons_fun(FIX2OBJ(1),cons_fun(FIX2OBJ(2),NILOBJ))

  PUSH(FIX2OBJ(1));
  PUSH(FIX2OBJ(2));
  PUSH(NILOBJ);
  CONS();
  CONS();
  QUOTE_CONSTANTS[0] = POP();

  (car (cdr foo))

  PUSH(car_fun(cdr_fun(LOCAL(3)/*foo@42*/)));

  #define car_fun(o) (((pair *)(o))->car)