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elisp: Sequences Arrays Vectors

 
 6 Sequences, Arrays, and Vectors
 ********************************
 
 The “sequence” type is the union of two other Lisp types: lists and
 arrays.  In other words, any list is a sequence, and any array is a
 sequence.  The common property that all sequences have is that each is
 an ordered collection of elements.
 
    An “array” is a fixed-length object with a slot for each of its
 elements.  All the elements are accessible in constant time.  The four
 types of arrays are strings, vectors, char-tables and bool-vectors.
 
    A list is a sequence of elements, but it is not a single primitive
 object; it is made of cons cells, one cell per element.  Finding the Nth
 element requires looking through N cons cells, so elements farther from
 the beginning of the list take longer to access.  But it is possible to
 add elements to the list, or remove elements.
 
    The following diagram shows the relationship between these types:
 
                _____________________________________________
               |                                             |
               |          Sequence                           |
               |  ______   ________________________________  |
               | |      | |                                | |
               | | List | |             Array              | |
               | |      | |    ________       ________     | |
               | |______| |   |        |     |        |    | |
               |          |   | Vector |     | String |    | |
               |          |   |________|     |________|    | |
               |          |  ____________   _____________  | |
               |          | |            | |             | | |
               |          | | Char-table | | Bool-vector | | |
               |          | |____________| |_____________| | |
               |          |________________________________| |
               |_____________________________________________|
 

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· Sequence Functions    Functions that accept any kind of sequence.
· Arrays                Characteristics of arrays in Emacs Lisp.
· Array Functions       Functions specifically for arrays.
· Vectors               Special characteristics of Emacs Lisp vectors.
· Vector Functions      Functions specifically for vectors.
· Char-Tables           How to work with char-tables.
· Bool-Vectors          How to work with bool-vectors.
· Rings                 Managing a fixed-size ring of objects.
 

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