On Tue, 2014-09-23 at 00:01 +0300, Marko Rauhamaa wrote: > Richard Shann <rich...@rshann.plus.com>: > > > I've come across some (working) scheme code whose meaning I can't > > unravel. The problem is there is a "." character whose significance > > eludes me. The guile reference doesn't index this character, and I can > > only find references to it in writing literal pairs. > > That's what it's for and nothing else, including in your example. > > (a b . c) > > is equivalent to > > (a . (b . c))
Thank you for the replies to my email. I see that in the case I cited it is being used to construct a list - the last element is a list. This looks like a major omission in the guile documentation, under pairs http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/manual/html_node/Pairs.html#Pairs it says: "Pairs can literally get entered in source code or at the REPL, in the so-called dotted list syntax. This syntax consists of an opening parentheses, the first element of the pair, a dot, the second element and a closing parentheses." and under lists http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/manual/html_node/List-Syntax.html#List-Syntax "The syntax for lists is an opening parentheses, then all the elements of the list (separated by whitespace) and finally a closing parentheses." but the syntax for a list can also be ...then elements of the list (separated by whitespace) a dot followed by a list followed by a closing parenthesis" - this doesn't quite describe using this syntax for improper lists though. Anyway, I am thoroughly educated on this topic now :) Thank you both very much. Richard