Emacs comes with the library GIT:emacs-lisp/pcase.el that gives “ML-style pattern-matching macro for Elisp”. The macros are AutoLoaded, so a ‘require’ expression is not necessary.

A simple function for finding the reciprocal of a number, using ‘if’ .

( defun recip (n) ( if (zerop n) ( error "Can't divide by zero" ) (/ 1.0 n)))

Here is a pattern matching version using ‘pcase’ .

( defun recip (n) ( pcase n (`0 ( error "Can't divide by zero" )) (n (/ 1.0 n)))) (recip 0) ==> ( error "Can't divide by zero" ) (recip 2) ==> 0.5

Find the absolute value of a number by using the ‘pred’ syntax of the macro system.

( defun absval (x) ( pcase x ((pred (< 0)) x) ((pred (= 0)) 0) ((pred (> 0)) (- x)))) (absval 1) ==> 1 (absval 0) ==> 0 (absval -1) ==> 1

Find the head (“car”) of a list.

( defun newcar (list) ( pcase list (`(,l . ,ll) l))) (newcar '(a b c)) ==> a

Find the tail (“cdr”) of a list.

( defun newcdr (list) ( pcase list (`(,l . ,ll) ll))) (newcdr '(a b c)) ==> (b c)

The second element of a list.

( defun 2nd (list) ( pcase list (`(,l ,l2 . ,_) l2))) (2nd '(1 2 3 4)) ==> 2

The second element when the list is smaller than length two is the empty list.

(2nd '(1)) ==> nil

The third element of a list.

( defun 3rd (list) ( pcase list (`(,l ,l2 ,l3 . ,_) l3))) (3rd '(1 2 3 4)) ==> 3

There is no pattern for matching the last element of a list. Instead, you need to recursively find the tail until the end using ‘cdr’ .

( defun thelast (list) ( pcase list (`(,l . nil) l) (_ (thelast (cdr list))))) (thelast '(1 2)) ==> 2 (thelast '(1 2 3 4)) ==> 4

Sum the series of integers from 1 to N.

( defun sum-to (n) ( pcase n (`1 1) (n (+ n (sum-to (1- n)))))) (sum-to 1) ==> 1 (sum-to 2) ==> 3 (sum-to 3) ==> 6 (sum-to 5) ==> 15 (sum-to 8) ==> 36 (mapcar 'sum-to (number-sequence 1 119)) ==> (1 3 6 10 15 21 28 36 45 55 66 78 91 105 120 136 153 171 190 210 231 253 276 300 325 351 378 406 435 465 496 528 561 595 630 666 703 741 780 820 861 903 946 990 1035 1081 1128 1176 1225 1275 1326 1378 1431 1485 1540 1596 1653 1711 1770 1830 1891 1953 2016 2080 2145 2211 2278 2346 2415 2485 2556 2628 2701 2775 2850 2926 3003 3081 3160 3240 3321 3403 3486 3570 3655 3741 3828 3916 4005 4095 4186 4278 4371 4465 4560 4656 4753 4851 4950 5050 5151 5253 5356 5460 5565 5671 5778 5886 5995 6105 6216 6328 6441 6555 6670 6786 6903 7021 7140)

Find the Nth Fibonacci number.

( defun fib (n) ( pcase n (`0 1) (`1 1) (n (+ (fib (- n 1)) (fib (- n 2)))))) (mapcar 'fib (number-sequence 0 6)) ==> (1 1 2 3 5 8 13)

Finding the factorial of N (N!) is

( defun fac (n) ( pcase n (`0 1) (n (* n (fac (1- n))))))) (mapcar 'fac (number-sequence 1 12)) ==> (1 2 6 24 120 720 5040 40320 362880 3628800 39916800 479001600)

Euclid’s algorithm for greatest common divisor of two numbers. Pattern matching works on multiple arguments when they are made into a list-value.

( defun gcd (x y) ( pcase (list x y) (`(,x 0) x) (`(,x ,y) (gcd y (% x y))))) (gcd 12 8) ==> 4

Another way to use multiple arguments in a pattern is to use BackquoteSyntax. It is eerily similar to the pattern syntax. Raising the number X to the power N.

( defun pow (x n) ( pcase `(,x ,n) (`(,x 0) 1) (`(,x ,n) (* x (pow x (1- n))))))

A faster version that uses squaring.

( defun pow-fast (x n) ( pcase `(,x ,n) (`(,x 0) 1) ((and ( let (pred oddp) n) `(,x ,n)) (* x (pow-fast (* x x) (/ n 2)))) (`(,x ,n) (pow-fast (* x x) (/ n 2))))) (pow-fast 2 5) ==> 32

The total computable function (for non-negative inputs) of Ackermann:

( defun ackermann (m n) ( pcase (list m n) (`(0 ,n) (1+ n)) (`(,m 0) (ackermann (1- m) 1)) (`(,m ,n) (ackermann (1- m) (ackermann m (1- n)))))) (ackermann 0 0) ==> 1 (ackermann 0 1) ==> 2 (ackermann 0 2) ==> 3 (ackermann 1 1) ==> 3 (ackermann 1 2) ==> 4 (ackermann 1 3) ==> 5 (ackermann 2 1) ==> 5 (ackermann 2 2) ==> 7 (ackermann 2 3) ==> 9 (ackermann 2 4) ==> 11 (ackermann 2 5) ==> 13 (ackermann 3 1) ==> 13 (ackermann 3 2) ==> 29 (ackermann 3 3) ==> 61 (ackermann 4 1) ==> 65533

A recursive function for describing numbers in English.

(defun int-to-words (n) "List of English groupings for number N." (let* ((pow10 (pcase (if (zerop n) 1 (floor (log10 (abs n)))) (`1 1) (`2 2) (`3 3) (n (- n (% n 3))))) (base10 (expt 10.0 pow10))) (pcase n (`nil (error)) ((pred (> 0)) (cons "negative" (int-to-words (- n)))) (`0 '("zero")) (`1 '("one")) (`2 '("two")) (`3 '("three")) (`4 '("four")) (`5 '("five")) (`6 '("six")) (`7 '("seven")) (`8 '("eight")) (`9 '("nine")) (`10 '("ten")) (`11 '("eleven")) (`12 '("twelve")) (`13 '("thirteen")) (`14 '("fourteen")) (`15 '("fifteen")) (`16 '("sixteen")) (`17 '("seventeen")) (`18 '("eighteen")) (`19 '("nineteen")) (`20 '("twenty")) (`30 '("thirty")) (`40 '("forty")) (`50 '("fifty")) (`60 '("sixty")) (`70 '("seventy")) (`80 '("eighty")) (`90 '("ninety")) ;; Less than 100 ((pred (> 100)) (list (mapconcat 'identity (cons (car (int-to-words (- n (% n 10)))) (int-to-words (% n 10))) "-"))) ;; Equal to a base ten ((pred (= base10)) (pcase pow10 (`2 '("hundred")) (`3 '("thousand")) (`6 '("million")) (`9 '("billion")) (`12 '("trillion")) (`15 '("quadrillion")) (`18 '("quintillion")) (`21 '("sextillion")) (`24 '("septillion")) (`27 '("octillion")) (`30 '("nonillion")) (`33 '("decillion")) (`36 '("undecillion")) (`39 '("duodecillion")) (`42 '("tredecillion")) (`45 '("quattuordecillion")) (`48 '("quindecillion")) (`51 '("sexdecillion")) (`54 '("septendecillion")) (`57 '("octodecillion")) (`60 '("novemdecillion")) (`63 '("vigintillion")) (_ (signal 'domain-error (list n))))) ;; Greater than a base ten ((pred (< base10)) (cons (mapconcat 'identity (append (int-to-words (floor (/ n base10))) (int-to-words base10)) (if (< (/ n base10) 20) "-" " ")) (if (zerop (mod n base10)) nil (int-to-words (if (< n most-positive-fixnum) (% (floor n) (floor base10)) (mod n base10))))))))) (int-to-words 333) ==> ("three-hundred" "thirty-three") (defun int-to-phrase (n) "Number N in English." (let ((words (int-to-words n))) (cond ((equal "negative" (car words)) (mapconcat 'identity (append (list (car words)) ;; '("negative") (if (> (length (cdr words)) 1) (list (mapconcat 'identity (butlast (cdr words) 1) ", ")) nil) (if (> (length (cdr words)) 1) '("and") nil) (last (cdr words) 1)) " ")) ((> (length words) 1) (mapconcat 'identity (append (list (mapconcat 'identity (butlast words 1) ", ")) '("and") (last words 1)) " ")) (t (car words))))) (int-to-phrase -4444) ==> "negative four-thousand, four-hundred and forty-four"

See also:

I use the following code to make an experiment, and it works fine: ( pcase '(apple . (banana orange)) (`(,a . (,b ,c)) (list a b c))) ==> (apple banana orange) But when I macroexpand the expression, the result is: (pp-macroexpand-expression '( pcase '(apple . (banana orange)) (`(,a . (,b ,c)) (list a b c)))) ==> ( if (consp '(apple banana orange)) ( let * ((xcar (car '(apple banana orange))) (xcdr (cdr '(apple banana orange)))) ( if (consp xcdr) ( let * ((xcar (car xcdr)) (xcdr (cdr xcdr))) ( if (consp xcdr) ( let * ((xcar (car xcdr)) (xcdr (cdr xcdr))) ( if (null xcdr) ( let ((c xcar) (b xcar) (a xcar)) (list a b c)) nil)) nil)) nil)) nil) It’s clearly wrong that ‘a’ , ‘b’ , ‘c’ all bound to ‘xcar’ and the result is “(orange orange orange)”. It confuses me very much. Is it a bug of Emacs’s macroexpand or I have missed some thing? My emacs version is “GNU Emacs 24.3.1” --xiepan

All those ‘xcar’ s are different symbols that happen to have the same string as a symbol name. If you (setq print-gensym t) you can see they will be printed as #:xcar indicating they are uninterned symbols.

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