From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eric Abrahamsen Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: reading a variable from the user Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2012 14:50:19 +0800 Message-ID: <874nm133kk.fsf@ericabrahamsen.net> References: <1349853875855-266778.post@n5.nabble.com> <1349917790397-266847.post@n5.nabble.com> <87y5jdn0wi.fsf@ericabrahamsen.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1349938246 6981 80.91.229.3 (11 Oct 2012 06:50:46 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2012 06:50:46 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Oct 11 08:50:53 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1TMCbX-0008FI-9W for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 11 Oct 2012 08:50:47 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:50457 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1TMCbR-0005VT-0K for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 11 Oct 2012 02:50:41 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([208.118.235.92]:49214) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1TMCbG-0005Uu-FX for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 11 Oct 2012 02:50:36 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1TMCbD-0003zG-DB for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 11 Oct 2012 02:50:30 -0400 Original-Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]:46261) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1TMCbD-0003yx-6j for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 11 Oct 2012 02:50:27 -0400 Original-Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1TMCbI-00084K-GE for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 11 Oct 2012 08:50:32 +0200 Original-Received: from 50-56-99-223.static.cloud-ips.com ([50.56.99.223]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Thu, 11 Oct 2012 08:50:32 +0200 Original-Received: from eric by 50-56-99-223.static.cloud-ips.com with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Thu, 11 Oct 2012 08:50:32 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 25 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: 50-56-99-223.static.cloud-ips.com X-Pgp-Key: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=vindex&search=0xC98BAE7B99D0D373 X-Pgp-Fingerprint: 8E19 28A9 2B51 0C67 565D DB34 C98B AE7B 99D0 D373 User-Agent: Gnus/5.130006 (Ma Gnus v0.6) Emacs/24.2.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:FahqH/6TKN4zWyqUUTe9hmLqBj0= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 80.91.229.3 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:87166 Archived-At: On Thu, Oct 11 2012, PJ Weisberg wrote: > On Wednesday, October 10, 2012, Eric Abrahamsen < > eric@ericabrahamsen.net> wrote: >> The difference, as far as I know, is that in the first method you > can >> have multiple values per list (so something like (william "William" >> "White" "xx@xxxxxx.org")), whereas the dotted cons cell notation > (the >> second one) only allows two atoms. > > FYI, '(william "William" "White" "xx@xxxxxx.org") is exactly the same > as '(william . ("William" "White" "xx@xxxxxx.org")) > > For that matter it's the same as '(william . ("William" . ("White" . > ("xx@xxxxxx.org" . nil)))).  A list is just a chain of cons cells. Ugh, of course! If I'd thought about it for two more seconds that would have been obvious -- that's the whole building block of lists! I wonder if there's much practical difference between alists made of lists vs those made of cons cells... -- GNU Emacs 24.2.50.1 (i686-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.4.4) of 2012-10-10 on pellet