From: David Whitten
Subject: Is the the right place to ask newbie Common Lisp questions?
Date:
Message-ID: <whittenCnupBw.LHJ@netcom.com>
Basically, I am reading some Common Lisp code for my own edification.
I don't have a Common Lisp on my system (a 286 IBM ...)
and I don't know if the code is referinng to built-in Common Lisp functions
or some Implementation's built-in functions.
I can read old Lisp and Scheme.
what is (declare ignore ignore) ?
what is &key and &aux ?
is (binding x y) a built in..?
more questions later (assuming I get answers...)
David ·······@netcom.com
From: Barry Margolin
Subject: Re: Is the the right place to ask newbie Common Lisp questions?
Date:
Message-ID: <2oac9uINNhqv@early-bird.think.com>
In article <·················@netcom.com> ·······@netcom.com (David Whitten) writes:
>Basically, I am reading some Common Lisp code for my own edification.
Perhaps you should get a copy of "Common Lisp: the Language", or some other
Common Lisp book, for your own education, if you're going to be doing much
of this.
>and I don't know if the code is referinng to built-in Common Lisp functions
>or some Implementation's built-in functions.
>what is (declare ignore ignore) ?
That should be
(declare (ignore ignore))
It means that the local variable named IGNORE will not be used; it keeps
the compiler from warning about unused variables.
>what is &key and &aux ?
&KEY specifies a parameter that is invoked using a keyword (a symbol
beginning with ":"). For instance, given the definition
(defun f (&key foo bar) ...)
it can be invoked with (f :bar 'x :foo 3).
&AUX is used to declare variables local to the function. It's equivalent
to beginning the function with a LET* that binds the variables.
>is (binding x y) a built in..?
No.
--
Barry Margolin
System Manager, Thinking Machines Corp.
······@think.com {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar