Page 57 - DCAP310_INTRODUCTION_TO_ARTIFICIAL_INTELLIGENCE_AND_EXPERT_SYSTEMS

Anil Sharma, Lovely Professional University
Unit 4: LISP

Unit 4: LISP Notes

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction
4.1 LISP Application

4.2 Syntax and Numeric Functions
4.3 Basic List Manipulation Functions in LISP
4.3.1 List Manipulation—Step 1
4.3.2 List Manipulation—Step 2
4.3.3 List Manipulation—Step 3
4.4 Functions
4.4.1 Defining Functions

4.4.2 Defining Procedures
4.5 Summary
4.6 Keywords
4.7 Review Questions
4.8 Further Readings

Objectives

After studying this unit, you will be able to:

Identify LISP Applications
Discuss the Syntax and Numeric Functions
Explain Basic List Manipulation Functions in LISP
Describe the concept of Functions and its Procedure

Introduction

LISP (historically, LISP) is a family of computer programming languages with a long history
and a distinctive, fully parenthesized Polish prefix notation. Originally specified in 1958, LISP is
the second-oldest high-level programming language in widespread use today; only Fortran is
older (by one year). Like Fortran, LISP has changed a great deal since its early days, and a
number of dialects have existed over its history. Today, the most widely known general-purpose
LISP dialects are Common LISP and Scheme. LISP was originally created as a practical mathematical
notation for computer programs, influenced by the notation of Alonzo Church’s lambda calculus.
It quickly became the favored programming language for artificial intelligence (AI) research.
As one of the earliest programming languages, LISP pioneered many ideas in computer science,
including tree data structures, automatic storage management, dynamic typing, conditionals,
higher-order functions, recursion, and the self-hosting compiler.
The name LISP derives from “List Processing”. Linked lists are one of LISP language’s major
data structures, and LISP source code is itself made up of lists. As a result, LISP programs can

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