May 15, 2003

cons

/konz/ or /kons/

[from LISP]

1. vt. To add a new element to a specified list, esp. at the top. OK, cons picking a replacement for the console TTY onto the agenda.

2. cons up: vt. To synthesize from smaller pieces: to cons up an example.

In LISP itself, cons is the most fundamental operation for building structures. It takes any two objects and returns a dot-pair or two-branched tree with one object hanging from each branch. Because the result of a cons is an object, it can be used to build binary trees of any shape and complexity. Hackers think of it as a sort of universal constructor, and that is where the jargon meanings spring from.

Posted by Jargon File at May 15, 2003 10:53 AM

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