Re: search aliases not working

[Katsumi Yamaoka <yamaoka@xxxxxxx>]

>>>>> In [emacs-w3m : No.07032]
>>>>>	"Robert D. Crawford" <rdc1x@comcast.net> wrote:

>> You may want to use the (setq VARIABLE VALUE) form instead of the
>> '(VARIABLE VALUE) form.

> For future reference, if there is a short answer and you have a minute,
> can you explain the difference in these two forms?  I have seen both but
> don't know why one would be used instead of the other.

Both of those use one of the proper Emacs Lisp forms:

(FUNCTION ARGUMENT ARGUMENT...)

The former sets the value of VARIABLE as VALUE, using the `setq'
FUNCTION.  The later is another representation of the following
form:

(quote (VARIABLE VALUE))

Where `quote' is a FUNCTION, the list form (VARIABLE VALUE) is
an ARGUMENT.  The `quote' function returns its argument as is,
so Emacs reads the (VARIABLE VALUE) form from the form but
simply ignores it.  However, it can be an argument for any
function.  For example, the following forms are identical:

(apply (function set) (quote (VARIABLE VALUE)))
(set (quote VARIABLE) VALUE)
(set 'VARIABLE VALUE)
(setq VARIABLE VALUE)

The first one means to `apply' the arguments VARIABLE and VALUE
to the `set' function.

Well, is it helpful to you? ;-)