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What word is abbreviated by "N" in names of destructive Lisp functions?

What word is abbreviated by "N" in names of destructive Lisp functions?

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DSblizzard Avatar asked Feb 13 '11 06:02

DSblizzard


1 Answers

Here is a direct answer from Linearity's link:

The N stands for non-consing, meaning it doesn't need to allocate any new cons cells.

Instead of allocating new cells, the old cells are reused resulting in destructive/impure modifications.

Signalling destructive behavior is critical, but it's also nice to know that the non-consing variants are typically faster as they don't copy objects and leave garbage lying around.

The specific section containing this information is titled: "Destructive" Operations

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Justin Meiners Avatar answered Oct 24 '22 19:10

Justin Meiners