(documentation 'some-function 'function)
David Allen
Why is it that this function exists, but practically none of the
builtin functions have anything registered with it?
I can do:
(defun identity (&rest foo)
"This is a pretty useless function"
foo)
and then
(documentation 'identity 'function) =>
"This is a pretty useless function"
But using documentation yields nothing for
all the builtin functions. What other online help
facilities are there available other than
documentation?
TIA
--
David Allen
http://opop.nols.com/
----------------------------------------
A slipping gear could let your M203 grenade launcher fire when you
least expect it. That would make you quite unpopular in what's left of
your unit.
- The Army's magazine of preventive maintenance.
Barry Margolin
David Allen <s2md...@titan.vcu.edu> wrote:
>Why is it that this function exists, but practically none of the
>builtin functions have anything registered with it?
Because most vendors haven't bothered. CLTL and the vendors' written
documentation usually provide much better information than can be crammed
into a little documentation string.
--
Barry Margolin, bar...@genuity.net
Genuity, Burlington, MA
*** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups.
Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group.
Rainer Joswig
> Why is it that this function exists, but practically none of the
> builtin functions have anything registered with it?
We can't guess what Lisp implementation you are using...
Anyway, Macintosh Common Lisp for example gives:
? (documentation 'documentation 'function)
"returns the documentation string of doc-type for symbol. Documentation
strings may be specified when functions, variables, macros, etc. are
defined. The documentation strings are only retained if
*save-doc-strings* is true when the definition occurs. doc-type may be
function, variable, structure, type, or setf."
> But using documentation yields nothing for
> all the builtin functions. What other online help
> facilities are there available other than
> documentation?
Various environments can access CLtL2 or the ANSI CL HyperSpec.
Rainer Joswig
Erik Naggum
| Why is it that this function exists, but practically none of the
| builtin functions have anything registered with it?
probably because there are better ways to find better documentation
for the language.
#:Erik
Tim Bradshaw
> But using documentation yields nothing for
> all the builtin functions. What other online help
> facilities are there available other than
> documentation?
One of the several hyperspec interfaces is generally a much better way
of doing this. I use Erik Naggum's but there are others. You
probably need emacs for these.
--tim
Paolo Amoroso
> One of the several hyperspec interfaces is generally a much better way
> of doing this. I use Erik Naggum's but there are others. You
> probably need emacs for these.
ILISP http://ilisp.cons.org/ (CVS tree at http://ilisp.sourceforge.net/)
ships with 3 HyperSpec interfaces by Daniel Barlow, Stephen Carney and Erik
Naggum.
Paolo
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