Chapter 9. Advanced Datatypes and Generic Programming
As you’ve seen so far, a lot can be accomplished in Lisp by using cons cells, symbols, strings, and numeric datatypes. As a very mature language, Common Lisp contains many more datatypes that move well beyond these basics. In this chapter, we will discuss the most useful of these advanced datatypes, including arrays, hash tables, and structures.
Arrays
The Common Lisp array is very similar to a list. The main advantage of using arrays is that they require only a constant amount of time to access a value at any specific location. We’ll be discussing what this means shortly.
Working with Arrays
To create a new array, use the make-array command, specifying the array’s size:
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