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22.2.3 List Constructors

This section describes the procedures for constructing new lists. list simply returns a list where the elements are the arguments, cons* is similar, but the last argument is stored in the cdr of the last pair of the list.

list . objs Scheme Procedure
scm_list (objs) C Function
Return a list containing objs, the arguments to list.

cons* arg1 arg2 ... Scheme Procedure
scm_cons_star (arg1, rest) C Function
Like list, but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list, returning (cons arg1 (cons arg2 (cons ... argn))). Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument is returned as result. This function is called list* in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.

list-copy lst Scheme Procedure
scm_list_copy (lst) C Function
Return a (newly-created) copy of lst.

make-list n [init] Scheme Procedure
Create a list containing of n elements, where each element is initialized to init. init defaults to the empty list () if not given.

Note that list-copy only makes a copy of the pairs which make up the spine of the lists. The list elements are not copied, which means that modifying the elements of the new list also modifies the elements of the old list. On the other hand, applying procedures like set-cdr! or delv! to the new list will not alter the old list. If you also need to copy the list elements (making a deep copy), use the procedure copy-tree (see Copying).