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Argument lists

You can retrieve the argument lists of compiled functions. Depending on how the functions were compiled and loaded into the Lisp environment, these argument lists may or may not contain the original argument names. If they do not contain the original names, they will still show the correct number and types of arguments, along with automatically generated names.

When working interactively, the names of arguments will be remembered if the value of the global variable *save-local-symbols* or of the global variable *save-definitions* is true. When loading functions from fasl files, the names of arguments will be remembered if the value of the global variable *fasl-save-local-symbols* or of the global variable *fasl-save-definitions* was true when the fasl files were compiled. The default value of all these variables is false.

There are four ways to retrieve the argument list of a function:

  • By using the function arglist, which takes a symbol as its first argument. This function returns the argument list of its argument, and also returns a second value describing how it computed the argument list.
  • By using the Fred command Control-x a, when the cursor is in a symbol or when a symbol is selected. This will cause the argument list of the function associated with the symbol to be displayed in the minibuffer of the current Fred window.
  • If *arglist-on-space* is true, then typing an open parenthesis followed by the name of a function followed by a space will cause the argument list of the function to be displayed in the minibuffer of the current Fred window. The default value of *arglist-on-space* is true.
  • The inspector displays the argument lists of functions when they are inspected.

    • Gettmg Started with MCL - 19 OCT 1996
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