Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!phri!roy
From: roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: what does "destructively sorted" mean in KCL?
Message-ID: <3916@phri.UUCP>
Date: 4 Aug 89 16:04:43 GMT
Organization: Public Health Research Institute, NYC, NY
Lines: 27


	I'm trying to figure out how the sort function works in KCL, but I
think I'm getting hung up on what "Common Lisp: The Language" means when it
says in section 14.5:  "The sequence is destructively sorted".  I took
"destructively sorted" to mean "sorted in-place", but it looks like it
really means "trashed, but a sorted copy is returned".  For example:

>(setq foo '(1 3 9 4 -2 0 9))
(1 3 9 4 -2 0 9)

>foo
(1 3 9 4 -2 0 9)

>(sort foo #'>)
(9 9 4 3 1 0 -2)

>foo
(1 0 -2)

	Sort returns a sorted list as its value, but the argument gets
trashed.  Is this really the way it's supposed to work?  Do I have to do
(setq foo (sort foo #'>)) to get it to work?
-- 
Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
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