dynamic scope

language In a dynamically scoped language, e.g. most

versions of Lisp, an identifier can be referred to, not

only in the block where it is declared, but also in any

function or procedure called from within that block, even if

the called procedure is declared outside the block.

This can be implemented as a simple stack of (identifier,

value) pairs, accessed by searching down from the top of stack

for the most recent instance of a given identifier.

The opposite is lexical scope. A common implementation of

dynamic scope is shallow binding.

(1996-07-11)