1.3.3 Evaluation Notation

A Lisp expression that you can evaluate is called a form. Evaluating a form always produces a result, which is a Lisp object. In the examples in this manual, this is indicated with ‘⇒’:

     (car '(1 2))
          ⇒ 1

You can read this as “(car '(1 2)) evaluates to 1”.

When a form is a macro call, it expands into a new form for Lisp to evaluate. We show the result of the expansion with ‘==>’. We may or may not show the result of the evaluation of the expanded form.

     (third '(a b c))
          ==> (car (cdr (cdr '(a b c))))
          ⇒ c

To help describe one form, we sometimes show another form that produces identical results. The exact equivalence of two forms is indicated with ‘==’.

     (make-sparse-keymap) == (list 'keymap)