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5.6.2.2 List Predicates

Often it is useful to test whether a given Scheme object is a list or not. List-processing procedures could use this information to test whether their input is valid, or they could do different things depending on the datatype of their arguments.

— Scheme Procedure: list? x
— C Function: scm_list_p (x)

Return #t iff x is a proper list, else #f.

The predicate null? is often used in list-processing code to tell whether a given list has run out of elements. That is, a loop somehow deals with the elements of a list until the list satisfies null?. Then, the algorithm terminates.

— Scheme Procedure: null? x
— C Function: scm_null_p (x)

Return #t iff x is the empty list, else #f.

— C Function: int scm_is_null (SCM x)

Return 1 when x is the empty list; otherwise return 0.