LISt Processing.

a ' makes something a quote (ie a string). So

'(elem1 elem2 elem3)

is a list.

setq makes something a global variable. (? - what's the difference between setq and let someone?)

(setq mylist '(a b c))

car returns the first element of a list

(print (car mylist))

a

cdr returns the rest of the list (ie all-but-first)

(print (cdr mylist)) (b c)

And that is basically LISP ;)

emacs is completely scriptable in LISP - look in /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/*.el for the start-up and config files.

Here is an emacs lisp example from po-mode.el. It only has a maximum of 8 closing brackets in a row, but I didn't look very hard.

;; Handle missing `with-temp-buffer' function. (eval-and-compile

(if nil ; FIXME: just testing... (fboundp 'with-temp-buffer)

(fset 'po-with-temp-buffer (symbol-function 'with-temp-buffer))

(defmacro po-with-temp-buffer (&rest forms)

"Create a temporary buffer, and evaluate FORMS there like `progn'." (let ((curr-buffer (make-symbol "curr-buffer"))

(temp-buffer (make-symbol "temp-buffer")))

`(let ((,curr-buffer (current-buffer))

(,temp-buffer (get-buffer-create

(generate-new-buffer-name " po-temp"))))

(unwind-protect

(progn

(set-buffer ,temp-buffer) ,@forms)

(set-buffer ,curr-buffer) (and (buffer-name ,temp-buffer)

(kill-buffer ,temp-buffer))))))))