From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: gnuist006@hotmail.com (gnuist006) Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Emacs internals + lisp guru question Date: 28 Sep 2002 23:18:22 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Sender: help-gnu-emacs-admin@gnu.org Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1033280773 4173 127.0.0.1 (29 Sep 2002 06:26:13 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 29 Sep 2002 06:26:13 +0000 (UTC) Return-path: Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 17vXWu-00015B-00 for ; Sun, 29 Sep 2002 08:26:12 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.10) id 17vXX8-0007LR-00; Sun, 29 Sep 2002 02:26:26 -0400 Original-Path: shelby.stanford.edu!nntp.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help,comp.lang.lisp,gnu.utils.help,comp.unix.shell,comp.unix.programmer Original-Lines: 27 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.178.176.175 Original-X-Trace: posting.google.com 1033280302 26261 127.0.0.1 (29 Sep 2002 06:18:22 GMT) Original-X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: 29 Sep 2002 06:18:22 GMT Original-Xref: nntp.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:105471 comp.lang.lisp:94905 gnu.utils.help:4049 comp.unix.shell:133531 comp.unix.programmer:143485 Original-To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-admin@gnu.org X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.11 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:2016 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.help:2016 There are some functions that take a list as argument. Text can be read from the buffer as a string. There are some functions that take a "symbol" as an argument. A string can be converted to a symbol. However, when symbol is provided to the function by converting a string it is not working. For example: (describe-function quoted-SYMBOL) works (make-symbol "describe-function") works but (describe-function (make-symbol "describe-function")) is not working. Is there a way to fix it? How can we get the code of describe-function? What is the meaning of the gibberish from (insert (format "%s" (symbol-function 'describe-function) )) What is out there to learn more about emacs/emacs_lisp and become more sophisticated? Many thanks to the gurus and novices for their very kind contributions.