GNU Info

(emacs-lisp-intro.info)Whitespace in Lists

---

Next: Typing Lists Prev: Lisp Atoms Up: Lisp Lists

---

Enter node , (file) or (file)node

Whitespace in Lists
-------------------

   The amount of whitespace in a list does not matter.  From the point
of view of the Lisp language,

     '(this list
        looks like this)

is exactly the same as this:

     '(this list looks like this)

   Both examples show what to Lisp is the same list, the list made up of
the symbols `this', `list', `looks', `like', and `this' in that order.

   Extra whitespace and newlines are designed to make a list more
readable by humans.  When Lisp reads the expression, it gets rid of all
the extra whitespace (but it needs to have at least one space between
atoms in order to tell them apart.)

   Odd as it seems, the examples we have seen cover almost all of what
Lisp lists look like!  Every other list in Lisp looks more or less like
one of these examples, except that the list may be longer and more
complex.  In brief, a list is between parentheses, a string is between
quotation marks, a symbol looks like a word, and a number looks like a
number.  (For certain situations, square brackets, dots and a few other
special characters may be used; however, we will go quite far without
them.)