Standard Library

Sema ships with a comprehensive standard library of built-in functions across many modules, covering everything from string manipulation and file I/O to HTTP requests, regex, and cryptographic hashing.

Naming Conventions

Sema's stdlib follows consistent naming patterns:

Pattern	Convention	Example
module/function	Slash-namespaced	string/trim, file/read, math/gcd
legacy-name	Scheme compat aliases	string-append → string/append
type->type	Arrow conversions	string/to-symbol, list->vector
predicate?	Predicate suffix	null?, list?, even?

Naming aliases

Several functions are registered under both a legacy (Scheme-style) name and a canonical slash-namespaced or predicate? name (Decision #24). Both forms are kept for backward compatibility; new code should prefer the canonical form on the right.

Legacy name	Canonical alias
any	any?
every	every?
time-ms	time/now-ms
hash-map	map/new
promise-forced?	async/forced?
tools->routes	route/from-tools
make-bytevector	bytevector/make (also bytevector/new)
bytevector-length	bytevector/length
bytevector-u8-ref	bytevector/u8-ref (also bytevector/ref)
bytevector-u8-set!	bytevector/u8-set! (also bytevector/set!)
bytevector-copy	bytevector/copy
bytevector-append	bytevector/append
bytevector->list	bytevector/to-list
list->bytevector	bytevector/from-list (also list/to-bytevector)

Predicates (bytevector? etc.) and the bare bytevector varargs constructor keep their short canonical names — predicates always stay un-namespaced.

Quick Reference

Math & Arithmetic

Function	Description
+, -, *, /, mod	Basic arithmetic
<, >, <=, >=, =	Comparison
abs, min, max, pow, sqrt, log	Numeric utilities
floor, ceil, round, truncate	Rounding
sin, cos, math/tan	Trigonometry
math/asin, math/acos, math/atan, math/atan2	Inverse trig
math/sinh, math/cosh, math/tanh	Hyperbolic
math/exp, math/log10, math/log2	Exponential & logarithmic
math/gcd, math/lcm, math/quotient, math/remainder	Integer math
math/random, math/random-int	Random numbers
math/clamp, math/sign, math/lerp, math/map-range	Interpolation & clamping
math/degrees->radians, math/radians->degrees	Angle conversion
even?, odd?, positive?, negative?, zero?	Numeric predicates
math/nan?, math/infinite?	Float predicates
pi, e, math/infinity, math/nan	Constants
bit/and, bit/or, bit/xor, bit/not, bit/shift-left, bit/shift-right	Bitwise operations

Strings & Characters

Function	Description
string/append, string/length, string/ref, string/slice	Core string ops
str, format	Conversion & formatting
string/split, string/join, string/trim	Split, join, trim
string/upper, string/lower, string/capitalize, string/title-case	Case conversion
string/contains?, string/starts-with?, string/ends-with?	Search predicates
string/replace, string/index-of, string/last-index-of, string/reverse	Manipulation
string/chars, string/repeat, string/pad-left, string/pad-right	Utilities
string/map, string/number?, string/empty?	Higher-order & predicates
string/after, string/before, string/between, string/take	Slicing & extraction
string/chop-start, string/chop-end, string/ensure-start, string/ensure-end	Prefix & suffix
string/wrap, string/unwrap, string/remove	Wrapping & removal
string/replace-first, string/replace-last	Targeted replacement
string/snake-case, string/kebab-case, string/camel-case, string/pascal-case	Case conversion
string/headline, string/words	Headline & word splitting
char/to-integer, integer/to-char, char/alphabetic?, ...	Character operations
string/to-number, number/to-string, string/to-symbol, ...	Type conversions

Lists

Function	Description
list, cons, car, cdr, first, rest	Construction & access
cadr, caddr, last, nth	Positional access
length, append, reverse, range	Basic operations
map, filter, foldl, foldr, reduce, flat-map	Higher-order functions
sort, sort-by, apply, for-each	Ordering & application
take, drop, flatten, flatten-deep, zip, partition	Sublists
member, any, every, list/index-of, list/unique, list/dedupe	Searching
list/group-by, list/interleave, list/chunk, frequencies	Grouping
list/sum, list/min, list/max	Aggregation
list/shuffle, list/pick	Random
list/repeat, make-list, iota	Construction
list/split-at, list/take-while, list/drop-while	Splitting
assoc, assq, assv	Association lists
interpose	Interleaving
list/reject, list/find, list/sole	Filtering & searching
list/pluck, list/key-by	Map extraction
list/avg, list/median, list/mode	Statistics
list/diff, list/intersect, list/duplicates	Set operations
list/sliding, list/page, list/cross-join	Windowing & pagination
list/pad, list/join, list/times	Padding, joining & generation
tap	Utility

Vectors

Function	Description
vector	Create a vector
vector->list, list->vector	Conversion

Maps & HashMaps

Function	Description
map/new, get, assoc, dissoc, merge	Core map ops
keys, vals, contains?, count	Inspection
map/entries, map/from-entries	Entry conversion
map/map-vals, map/map-keys, map/filter	Higher-order
map/select-keys, map/update	Selection & update
map/sort-keys, map/except, map/zip	Sorting, exclusion & zipping
hashmap/new, hashmap/get, hashmap/assoc, ...	HashMap operations

Predicates & Type Checking

Function	Description
null?, nil?, empty?, list?, pair?	Collection predicates
number?, integer?, float?, string?, symbol?, keyword?	Type predicates
char?, record?, bytevector?, bool?, fn?	More type predicates
map?, vector?	Container predicates
promise?, promise-forced?	Promise predicates
eq?, =, zero?, even?, odd?, positive?, negative?	Equality & numeric
prompt?, message?, conversation?, tool?, agent?	LLM type predicates

File I/O & Paths

Function	Description
display, println, pprint, print, io/print-error, io/println-error, newline, io/read-line, io/read-stdin, io/eof?, io/flush	Console I/O
file/read, file/write, file/append	File read/write
file/read-bytes, file/write-bytes	Binary file I/O
file/read-lines, file/write-lines	Line-based I/O
file/for-each-line, file/fold-lines	Streaming line I/O
file/delete, file/rename, file/copy	File management
file/exists?, file/is-file?, file/is-directory?, file/is-symlink?	File predicates
file/list, file/mkdir, file/info	Directory operations
file/glob	File globbing
path/join, path/dirname, path/basename, path/extension, path/absolute	Path manipulation
path/ext, path/stem, path/dir, path/filename, path/absolute?	Path predicates & components

PDF Processing

Function	Description
pdf/extract-text	Extract all text from a PDF
pdf/extract-text-pages	Extract text per page (returns list)
pdf/page-count	Get number of pages
pdf/metadata	Get metadata map (:title, :author, :pages, ...)

HTTP & JSON

Function	Description
http/get, http/post, http/put, http/delete, http/request	HTTP methods
json/encode, json/encode-pretty, json/decode	JSON serialization

Web Server

Function	Description
http/serve	Start an HTTP server
http/router	Data-driven routing
http/ok, http/created, http/no-content, http/not-found, http/error	JSON response helpers
http/redirect	HTTP redirect
http/html, http/text	Content-type responses
http/file	Serve a file from disk
http/stream	SSE streaming
http/websocket	WebSocket connections

Regex

Function	Description
regex/match?, regex/match, regex/find-all	Matching
regex/replace, regex/replace-all, regex/split	Replacement & splitting

CSV, Crypto & Encoding

Function	Description
csv/parse, csv/parse-maps, csv/encode	CSV operations
uuid/v4	UUID generation
base64/encode, base64/decode	Base64 encoding
base64/encode-bytes, base64/decode-bytes	Binary Base64
hash/sha256, hash/md5, hash/hmac-sha256	Hashing

Date & Time

Function	Description
time/now, time-ms	Current time
time/format, time/parse	Formatting & parsing
time/date-parts	Date decomposition
time/add, time/diff	Arithmetic
sleep	Delay execution

System

Function	Description
env, sys/env-all, sys/set-env	Environment variables
sys/args, sys/cwd, sys/platform, sys/os, sys/arch	System info
sys/pid, sys/tty, sys/which, sys/elapsed	Process info
sys/interactive?, sys/hostname, sys/user	Session info
sys/home-dir, sys/temp-dir	Directory paths
sys/term-size	Terminal size (Unix)
sys/on-signal, sys/check-signals	Signal hooks (Unix)
shell	Run shell commands
exit	Exit process

Serial Ports

Function	Description
serial/list	List available device paths
serial/open, serial/close	Open/close a port (returns int handle)
serial/write, serial/read-line	Raw I/O
serial/send	Write line + read JSON response

Bytevectors

Function	Description
bytevector, bytevector/new	Construction
bytevector/length, bytevector/ref, bytevector/set!	Access & mutation
bytevector/copy, bytevector/append	Copy & append
bytevector/to-list, list/to-bytevector	List conversion
utf8/to-string, string/to-utf8	String conversion

Streams

Function	Description
stream/from-string, stream/from-bytes, stream/byte-buffer	In-memory streams
stream/open-input, stream/open-output	File streams
stream/read, stream/read-byte, stream/read-line, stream/read-all	Reading
stream/write, stream/write-byte, stream/write-string	Writing
stream/close, stream/flush, stream/copy	Control
stream?, stream/readable?, stream/writable?, stream/available?	Predicates
stream/type, stream/to-bytes, stream/to-string	Introspection & extraction
*stdin*, *stdout*, *stderr*	Standard I/O globals
with-stream	Resource management macro

Concurrency

Function	Description
async/spawn, async/await, async/all, async/race	Async task management
async/resolved, async/rejected	Pre-settled promises
async/run, async/sleep, async/timeout	Scheduler control & deadlines
async/cancel, async/cancelled?	Cancellation
async/promise?, async/resolved?, async/rejected?, async/pending?	Promise predicates
channel/new, channel/send, channel/recv, channel/try-recv	Channel operations
channel/close	Channel lifecycle
channel?, channel/closed?, channel/empty?, channel/full?, channel/count	Channel predicates

Records

Function	Description
define-record-type	Define a record type
record?	Record predicate
type	Get record type tag

Terminal Styling

Function	Description
term/bold, term/red, term/green, ...	Individual style functions
term/style	Apply multiple styles with keywords
term/rgb	24-bit true color
term/strip	Remove ANSI escape codes
term/spinner-start, term/spinner-stop, term/spinner-update	Animated spinners
io/tty-raw!, io/tty-restore!	Raw-mode TTY (Unix)
io/read-key, io/read-key-timeout	Per-keystroke input (Unix)

Text Processing

Function	Description
text/chunk, text/chunk-by-separator, text/split-sentences	Text chunking
text/clean-whitespace, text/strip-html	Text cleaning
text/truncate, text/word-count, text/trim-indent	Text utilities
text/excerpt, text/normalize-newlines	Excerpt extraction & newline normalization
prompt/template, prompt/render	Prompt templates
document/create, document/text, document/metadata, document/chunk	Document metadata

SQLite

Function	Description
db/open, db/open-memory	Open file or in-memory database
db/exec, db/exec-batch	Execute statements
db/query, db/query-one	Query rows as maps
db/last-insert-id	Last inserted rowid
db/tables	List tables
db/close	Close connection

Typed Arrays

Function	Description
f64-array, i64-array	Create from values
f64-array/make, i64-array/make	Create with fill
f64-array/range, i64-array/range	Create from range
f64-array/from-list, i64-array/from-list	Convert from list
f64-array/ref, i64-array/ref	Index access
f64-array/set!, i64-array/set!	Set element (CoW)
f64-array/length, i64-array/length	Length
f64-array/sum, i64-array/sum	Fast sum
f64-array/dot	Dot product
f64-array/map, i64-array/map	Map over elements
f64-array/fold, i64-array/fold	Fold over elements
f64-array?, i64-array?	Type predicates

Context

Function	Description
context/set, context/get, context/has?	Core key-value context
context/remove, context/pull, context/all	Retrieval & cleanup
context/merge, context/clear	Bulk operations
context/with	Scoped overrides (auto-restores on exit)
context/push, context/stack, context/pop	Named stacks
context/set-hidden, context/get-hidden, context/has-hidden?	Hidden (non-logged) context

Key-Value Store

Function	Description
kv/open, kv/close	Open/close a JSON-backed store
kv/get, kv/set, kv/delete	CRUD operations
kv/keys	List all keys

TOML

Function	Description
toml/decode	Decode TOML to Sema
toml/encode	Encode Sema to TOML

Playground & WASM

Function	Description
web/user-agent	Browser user agent string (WASM only)
web/user-agent-data	Structured browser info map (Chromium only, WASM only)