— special form: begin expression expression ...

The expressions are evaluated sequentially from left to right, and the value of the last expression is returned. This expression type is used to sequence side effects such as input and output.

          (define x 0)
          (begin (set! x 5)
                 (+ x 1))                 =>  6
          
          (begin (display "4 plus 1 equals ")
                 (display (+ 4 1)))
                                          -|  4 plus 1 equals 5
                                          =>  unspecified
     

Often the use of begin is unnecessary, because many special forms already support sequences of expressions (that is, they have an implicit begin). Some of these special forms are:

          case
          cond
          define          ;``procedure define'' only
          do
          fluid-let
          lambda
          let
          let*
          letrec
          named-lambda
     

The obsolete special form sequence is identical to begin. It should not be used in new code.