Re: RFC: make maphash return a list

[Wilfred Hughes <me@wilfred.me.uk>]

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> maphash is nice because it doesn't cons a list.

So you're saying that maphash returning nil is a desirable property because
it doesn't build a list if you don't want it? OK, I understand. I think it
might be helpful for the docstring of maphash to say 'for side effects
only' the same way mapc does. My (incorrect) intuition was that any mapFOO
function would return a sequence unless otherwise stated.

> (defun choose-name-to-taste (callable table)
>   "Left as an exercise for the reader."
>   (let ((retlist nil))
>    (maphash (lambda (key value)
>               (setq retlist (cons (funcall callable key value) retlist)))
>             table))
>    retlist))

Yep, exactly. I don't want to turn this into bikeshedding -- I only felt it
was a nice to have, and of course I can build a list myself. Since both
mapcar and mapc exist in core Emacs, would it be worthwhile to have a
blessed chose-name-to-taste implementation in core?

> Isn't this [adding functionality to loop] the right place to improve
elisp?

That's an excellent idea, I'll try to put together a patch for that.

Thanks for your feedback, I appreciate it.

Wilfred

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