Re: 'length' function for lists and cons cells?

[Thorsten Jolitz <tjolitz@gmail.com>]

Stephen Berman <stephen.berman@gmx.net> writes:

>> which function could I use when I map an alist e.g. with dolist, that
>> contains both types of associations as shown below: cons cells, or lists
>> with 3 or more elements?
>>
>> 'length' doesn't work on cons cells:
>
> Since a cons cells always contains exactly two members (its car and its
> cdr), why do you want to call a function to find its length?

actually I'm looking for a way to distinguish between cons cells and
regular lists to avoid the errors when mapping an alist that contains
both with functions that work only on one of them, using 'length' was
just a hack. 

I would have thought that 'consp' might be the right function, but:

,-----------------------
| (consp '("a" "b" "c"))
| t
| 
| (consp '("a" . "c"))
| t
`-----------------------

-- 
cheers,
Thorsten