LISP Functions for Powerful Programming

Abstract

This chapter introduces major topics not developed in chapters 1 or 3. The first section covers the basics of debugging. The second presents applicative operators (APPLY, FUNCALL, MAPCAR, and MAPLIST) and their programming style. Section three deals with macros—functions which perform syntactic preprocessing on unevaluated arguments. Four discusses structures and vectors—objects not described in 3.1. As an application, structures are used to represent chemical atoms and fragments of molecules which are linked into desired molecules by a macro called BOND. In section five, function closures are explained. Finally, the last section introduces functions which surgically reconfigure pointers in data structures.