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A Lisp object that is intended to be evaluated is called a form (or an expression). How Emacs evaluates a form depends on its data type. Emacs has three different kinds of form that are evaluated differently: symbols, lists, and “all other types”. This section describes all three kinds, one by one, starting with the “all other types” which are self-evaluating forms.
| • Self-Evaluating Forms: | Forms that evaluate to themselves. | |
| • Symbol Forms: | Symbols evaluate as variables. | |
| • Classifying Lists: | How to distinguish various sorts of list forms. | |
| • Function Indirection: | When a symbol appears as the car of a list, we find the real function via the symbol. | |
| • Function Forms: | Forms that call functions. | |
| • Macro Forms: | Forms that call macros. | |
| • Special Forms: | "Special forms" are idiosyncratic primitives, most of them extremely important. | |
| • Autoloading: | Functions set up to load files containing their real definitions. |