List is represented by a sequence of elements within parentheses. Each element is separated by space.
(1 2 3 4 5) (apple banana orange) (#\H #\e #\l #\l #\o)
Evaluation of a list is conducted in two different ways depending on the
first element in the list. When evaluation of the first element results
in a function, remaining elements are evaluated and the function is
called with those evaluated values as arguments. For example, the
identifier + evaluates to a function that returns the sum of its
arguments.
(+ 1 2) ==> 3 (+ 1 2 3 4) ==> 10 (+ (+ 1 2) (+ 3 4) ==> 10
In another form of evaluation, the first element represents an
invocation of pre-defined special form. How the remaining elements are
evaluated depends on the individual special forms. For example,
define represents a special form that defines a variable. The first
argument indicates the name of the variable, and the evaluation of the
second argument specifies the value of the variable.
(define a (+ 10 20))
Evaluation of the above form returns an unspecified value. As a side
effect, it defines a variable named a whose value is 30.
In Scheme, lists are constructed from pairs. A pair is a record
structure with two fields called the car and cdr fields
(for historical reasons). A two-element list is a pair whose car is the
first element and whose cdr is a pair whose car is the second element
and whose cdr is the empty list. The empty list is a special object of
its own and is represented by ().
The most general notation for Scheme pairs is the "dotted" notation
(c1 . c2) where c1 is the value of the car field and
c2 is the value of the cdr field. For example (4 . 5) is a
pair whose car is 4 and whose cdr is 5. For example,
(a b c d e)
and
(a . (b . (c . (d . (e . ())))))
are equivalent notations for a list of symbols.
A chain of pairs not ending in the empty list is called an improper list. The list and dotted notations can be combined to represent improper lists:
(a b c . d)
is equivalent to
(a . (b . (c . d)))
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