this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
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It's symbols not strings are fundamental data type, an insight from read. (alien.top)
submitted 11 months ago by AbstProcDo@alien.top to c/emacs
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In elisp, symbols serve as fundamental data structures that are more foundational compared to strings. This distinction often caused confusion for me until my encounter with the read function.

 ~ $ (type-of (read))
 symbol

The fact that the read function yields symbols instead of strings from user-input was a delightful revelation. This discovery convinces me that the fundamental nature of symbols in elisp when compared to strings.

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[–] carlgay@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago (8 children)

(read) returns whatever the type of its input was. If you enter a string literal it returns a string, if you enter a symbol literal it returns a symbol, if you enter a numeric literal it returns a number, etc.

[–] AbstProcDo@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I assume the read function initially reads the input as a symbol type, and subsequently, during the evaluation process, converts it into the corresponding data type. This two-step process involves reading the input as a symbol and then evaluating it to obtain the appropriate type.

[–] permetz@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

That’s not correct.

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