This isn't about syntax, as changing hash-table-{keys,values} to be built-in functions wouldn't change their syntax.

I was curious about this because there doesn't seem to be a way to iterate over a hash-table without either explicitly or implicitly using a lambda. For example, if we macro expand the following cl-loop

(cl-loop for key being hash-keys of tables using (hash-values v)
         collect (func k v))

we obtain:

(cl-block nil
  (cl-block --cl-finish--
    (maphash
     (lambda
       (key v)
       (func k v))
     tables))
  nil)

Most languages that provide a hash-table data structure provide methods for directly accessing the hash keys and values. I'm trying to understand if it would be beneficial for elisp to provide these as well. Would it provide a significant enough speed boost for code that frequently iterates over hash keys/values? Is there some complication implementing these functions in C directly?

Shankar Rao