Re: Atoms in association lists

[EJS%acorn@oak.lcs.mit.edu]

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    Date: Thu, 9 Jul 87 07:49 EDT
    From: Scott Cyphers <Cyphers@YUKON.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
    Subject: Re: Atoms in association lists
    To: sidney%acorn@oak.lcs.mit.edu, dml@NADC.ARPA
    cc: common-lisp@sail.stanford.edu
    In-Reply-To: <870709062325.2.SIDNEY@ACORN.Gold-Hill.DialNet.Symbolics.COM>
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	Date: Thu, 9 Jul 87 06:23 EDT
	From: sidney%acorn@oak.lcs.mit.edu


	   Actually, GCLisp handles atoms in alists by ignoring them,
	   whether they are strings, NIL, or other symbols.  E.g.,

	   (SETQ abc '(c (c . 3) NIL (NIL . 4)))
	   (ASSOC 'c abc) --> (c . 3)
	   (ASSOC nil abc) --> (NIL . 4)

	   This is in accordance with CLtL, I believe.

	   David Loewenstern
	--------
	Since NIL is a list

    But NIL is not a cons.  See page 281 of CLtL.

     as well as an atom and (car NIL) => NIL
	the correct result is
	   (assoc NIL '((c . 3) NIL (NIL . 4))) => NIL

    (NIL . 4) should be returned, as someone stated earlier.

	The version of GCLisp I work with (2.4) evaluates it correctly. If an
	earlier version does return (NIL . 4) then it is a bug. (I didn't try it
	on any earlier versions.)

	-- sidney markowitz <sidney%acorn@oak.mit.edu>
	   Gold Hill Computers

No Sidney, I believe we are not in conformance with the spec since we fail
the specific test case mentioned in CLtL.  This is a long-reported bug for
which the bug form sits on my desk this very instance.  It is still a bug
in 2.9.3 (beta release of 3.0).