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5.6.2.5 Append and Reverse

append and append! are used to concatenate two or more lists in order to form a new list. reverse and reverse! return lists with the same elements as their arguments, but in reverse order. The procedure variants with an ! directly modify the pairs which form the list, whereas the other procedures create new pairs. This is why you should be careful when using the side-effecting variants.

— Scheme Procedure: append lst1 ... lstN
— Scheme Procedure: append! lst1 ... lstN
— C Function: scm_append (lstlst)
— C Function: scm_append_x (lstlst)

Return a list comprising all the elements of lists lst1 to lstN. 

          (append '(x) '(y))          =>  (x y)
          (append '(a) '(b c d))      =>  (a b c d)
          (append '(a (b)) '((c)))    =>  (a (b) (c))

The last argument lstN may actually be any object; an improper list results if the last argument is not a proper list. 

          (append '(a b) '(c . d))    =>  (a b c . d)
          (append '() 'a)             =>  a

append doesn't modify the given lists, but the return may share structure with the final lstN. append! modifies the given lists to form its return.

For scm_append and scm_append_x, lstlst is a list of the list operands lst1 ... lstN. That lstlst itself is not modified or used in the return.

— Scheme Procedure: reverse lst
— Scheme Procedure: reverse! lst [newtail]
— C Function: scm_reverse (lst)
— C Function: scm_reverse_x (lst, newtail)

Return a list comprising the elements of lst, in reverse order.

reverse constructs a new list, reverse! modifies lst in constructing its return.

For reverse!, the optional newtail is appended to to the result. newtail isn't reversed, it simply becomes the list tail. For scm_reverse_x, the newtail parameter is mandatory, but can be SCM_EOL if no further tail is required.