screwy alist syntax

screwy alist syntax

[Brian S McQueen]

I just noticed something that looks screwy.  Is there a good reason for
the following?

The assq func take a key and an alist:

assq key alist
assv key alist
assoc key alist
scm_assq (key, alist)
scm_assv (key, alist)
scm_assoc (key, alist)

BUT the assq-ref func take an alist and a key, which is the opposite
order:

assq-ref alist key
assv-ref alist key
assoc-ref alist key
scm_assq_ref (alist, key)
scm_assv_ref (alist, key)
scm_assoc_ref (alist, key)

I think these should two classes of functions should have their args in
the same order.

Brian McQueen
NAS Division
NASA/Ames


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Re: screwy alist syntax

[Paul Jarc]

Brian S McQueen <bqueen@nas.nasa.gov> wrote:
> I just noticed something that looks screwy.  Is there a good reason for
> the following?

Whether there was a good reason when these procedures were invented, I
can't say.  (ass*-ref and other *-ref procedures follow the same
pattern among themselves, at least.)  But backward compatibility is a
good reason now for them to stay the way they are.


paul


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Re: screwy alist syntax

[Stephen Compall]

Brian S McQueen <bqueen@nas.nasa.gov> writes:

> I just noticed something that looks screwy.  Is there a good reason for
> the following?
> 
> The assq func take a key and an alist:
> 
> assq key alist
> ...
> BUT the assq-ref func take an alist and a key, which is the opposite
> order:
> 
> assq-ref alist key
> ...

Just making up stuff here, but I think that `assq' et al are historic
Lisp functions, and so were left as they were.  However, `assq-ref' et
al are new, so can have the `right' order.  They aren't in Emacs,
anyway.

--
Stephen Compall or s11 or sirian

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