Function CAR in LISP program returns the first element in a list.
(car '(a b c d)) Returns a
Function CDR would return everything but the first element in a list.
(cdr '(a b c d)) returns (b c d)
There are of course many variations of this.
(cadr '(a b c d)) Returns b
Working from the inside out is the same as (car (cdr '(a b c d)))
I would insist to reintroduce "Lot of Insane and Stupid Parenthesis" somewhere this is a famous joke and has also its place in Wikipedia. Ericd 20:27 Apr 14, 2003 (UTC)
It is in there. Paragraph 2 of "Syntax". It's "Lots of Irritating Superfluous Parentheses", btw (sometimes also "Lots of Isolated Silly Parenthesis".) -- CYD
I propose that this page should be entitled Lisp programming language for two reasons: First, the spelling "LISP" (in capitals) does not seem to be used among current practitioners of the language. (See for instance the newsgroup comp.lang.lisp and the work of Paul Graham.) Second, this will bring it in line with the other pages of the form "Name programming language" while preserving distinction from the word for the speech impediment. --FOo 00:40 7 Jun 2003 (UTC)
- I don't think we need programming language. In fact, many article has no programming language suffix. Take Fortran, C Plus Plus and so on. -- Taku 00:47 7 Jun 2003 (UTC)