Hi Glenn

thanks for your quick reply. I see what you mean, the append is further down and I was looking at the code following this comment where it says 'append' (line 3 below) and then uses cons (line 6). On the other hand being a new user, I NEED to read the manual whereas I'm guessing you don't. :)

cheers

Gary

(cond
            ;; check to see whether filename ends in `.el'
            ;; and if so, append its name to a list.
            ((equal ".el" (substring (car (car current-directory-list)) -3))
             (setq el-files-list
                   (cons (car (car current-directory-list)) el-files-list)))
            ;; check whether filename is that of a directory
            ((eq t (car (cdr (car current-directory-list))))
             ;; decide whether to skip or recurse

On 30/09/15 00:44, Glenn Morris wrote:

Gary wrote:

The info section Recursive Pattern: _accumulate_ states:

'This is very like the 'every' pattern using 'cons', except that
'cons' is not used, but some other combiner.'

The example link 'Making a List of Files' uses cons to accumulate a list
of files.

The recursive function call (which is what the section "Recursive
Patterns" is about) in files-in-below-directory uses "append", not cons.
cons happens to be used elsewhere in the function. It says right before
the files-in-below-directory definition that it uses "append".
So personally speaking I don't find it confusing.