Re: One more question about elisp

[tomas]

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On Sat, Nov 07, 2009 at 06:41:07AM -0800, Francis Moreau wrote:
> On 7 nov, 02:40, LanX <lanx.p...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> > On 6 Nov., 22:05, Francis Moreau <francis.m...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > It sounds strange to me (knowing C, python) to use hash tables to
> > > structure data.
> >
> > You never used dicts in python for structured data???
> 
> No since python is known to be an object oriented language, if I want
> to create an object, I'm defining a new class. I don't use a hash
> table for that.

But Python *does* anyway use a hash behind the scenes for that. Like
Perl and friends (as you seem to know, see below).

> 
> C allows to define new type. So I won't use a hash table to do that.
> 
> But I can understand that elisp has no way to create new types, and
> hash tables can serve the purpose although I'm wondering how the code
> will be readable (yes I already found elisp quite hard to read).

You have been pointed to "defstruct" already. From it info page:

 +---------------------------------------------------------------------
 | defstruct is an autoloaded Lisp macro in `cl-macs.el'.
 | 
 | (defstruct (name options...) (slot slot-opts...)...)
 | 
 | Define a struct type.
 | This macro defines a new Lisp data type called name, which contains data
 | stored in slots.  This defines a `make-name' constructor, a `copy-name'
 | copier, a `name-p' predicate, and setf-able `NAME-SLOT' accessors.
 +---------------------------------------------------------------------

> > IIRC an object instance  (like in your example) is actually just a
> > dictionary and "dictionary" is just the python way to say hash table.
> 
> That's an implementation detail. The way you access fields of an
> object through a hash table doesn't mean that an object is equivalent
> to a hash table.

If you don't care in Python, why you should care in Lisp? Just define a
couple of accessor macros and be done with it. Or let Lisp do it for
you, via a clever set of macros, als cl-macs.el does for you :-)

Regards
- -- tomás
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