Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!ames!amdcad!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!cme-durer!warsaw
From: warsaw@cme-durer.ARPA (Barry A. Warsaw)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Re: Need help w/ Gnu auto-mode-alist
Summary: cons vs. append
Message-ID: <227@rtg.cme-durer.ARPA>
Date: 12 Feb 88 21:37:43 GMT
References: <760003@hpwale.HP.COM> <3990004@hpesoc1.HP.COM>
Organization: National Bureau of Standards
Lines: 24

In article <3990004@hpesoc1.HP.COM>, rsnyder@hpesoc1.HP.COM (Rob Snyder) writes:
> Try putting this in you .el file:
> (setq auto-mode-alist
> 	(cons '("\\.c" . c++-mode) auto-mode-alist))
> (setq auto-mode-alist
> 	(cons '("\\.doc" . nroff-mode) auto-mode-alist))
> 
> Rob Snyder
> Hewlett-Packard Entry Systems Operation
> Cupertino, CA
> 
> Disclaimer:  blah blah, blah, yakety, yak, yak, and so on and so forth

I use the following line to set text-mode on the files that vnews uses
to reply and followup to articles:

(setq auto-mode-alist
	(append
		'(("^/tmp/\\(post\\|fol\\)a[0-9]*" . text-mode)
		auto-mode-alist)))

My question is: what's the difference between using append and cons?
Is there a difference?  I think I used a template I saw in one of
gnu's .el files